William and I returned to the house not long after.

We stopped off at a bakery on the walk home where William purchased some cream buns for us to eat on the walk back and we spoke very little. I carried the fabric under one arm, wishing I could go back to the shop and return it but I did not and manoeuvred my way through the streets with it. It would be nice to have a new dress, but I wanted to be able to pay for the materials myself, to be able to buy it rather than have it handed to me as a form of a charity.

Still, the trip to the shop had been rather helpful and Rosie's words continued to play on my mind as we walked. I liked the idea of deciding everything for myself, or not having to worry or take into consideration what anyone else thought. Rosie had done that and managed to turn around the life she no doubt thought she would never be able to escape from. Regardless of whether I ended up going into service, I did not want to spend my entire life being known as an orphan, as though it were my only defining character.

I did not hate James' suggestion of working in the shop had it been a serious one, and I could not tell if he really meant it or not. My future had always felt decided for me; service. The idea of being able to choose and that I might be able to do something else had never crossed my mind, not once. I did not feel like I had the skill to do anything other than scrub floors for a living and I had not made any clothing since my Sunday best six years before. Although I did not hate the idea, it felt odd to know that that choice was there when I did not know it.

When we reached the house, Mr and Mrs Atkinson had disappeared somewhere upstairs, so William and I sat down in the living room. I placed the fabric beside me along with the other things James had given me and clasped my hands in my lap. Rosie have may have told me to enjoy myself a little more and be more open about things, but that was far easier said than done. It would take a while until I grew completely comfortable with being at the Atkinsons. Even I did not think a week would be enough time.

"Did it help? Talking to Rosie?" William asked.

I nodded. "A lot. Thank you for suggesting it, and for taking me there."

"You're welcome. She's a better person to talk to than me since she's been in a similar situation. I was only young when the fire at the factory happened, but the family who took her in where friends of Mother and Father. You know, I think they got the idea of adoption because of what they did. They tried several orphanages in the area before they found you."

"Really? I thought I would have been someone's last choice."

"Not my parents. I guess they thought you were the better person to give a new start, even if they don't know what happened with your foster parents."

"I'll have to tell them eventually."

"Perhaps, or they may never ask. If you want, I could tell them. It might be a tad easier."

"No, I think this is something I have to do myself."

William nodded and said nothing more. He slumped back against the chair and stretched his arms up behind me, staring at the ceiling. I looked over at the fabric, funning my fingers across it again and trying to decide what I wanted to do with it. It had been so long since I made anything that I did not think I would be any good at it. Still, James had given me the task and I intended to carry it out as best I could, even if the dress looked like it had been made by a younger child rather than a thirteen-year-old.

"Rosie was right about your scar, by the way. You could come up with the most ridiculous story you can think of for how it happened, and no one can tell you otherwise."

"I've never really thought of it like that."

"It's like me with the burn, say anything in a convincing tone and people will believe anything."

I laughed and ran my hands across my skirt. For years I had refused to even talk about the scar and would just have to sit there and deal with people talking about me as though I was not even there. This would give me the opportunity to come up with anything I wanted and see whether people were gullible enough to believe a lie. It would also be far easier than having to admit the truth to total strangers and people who did not need to know what really happened all those years ago.

After a little while, William stood up and stretched, leaving me alone in the living room and making me feel a little more awkward than I had just a few seconds before. With no one around, I looked at the coffee table and removed a small, glass bowl that sat in the centre, placing it on the chair beside me so I would not accidentally smash it. From there, I laid the fabric onto the table and just stared at it, trying to come up with something I could do with it but not having that much luck in terms of ideas. Perhaps it would be for the best to come up with something simple and easy to do, but that felt od considering the extravagance of the fabric. It deserved to be shown off.

James had given me a pencil and a pair of sharp scissors from the shop, so I took the pencil and started to lightly sketch onto the back of the fabric with the pencil. I had no idea how long the dress needed to be so I took a rough estimate and drew a simple shape onto the fabric, knowing I would need to check it against my current dress later that evening. When I had finished, the light shape of a dress had appeared against the reverse side of the fabric, but it felt too simple for a fabric of this nature.

With the embellishments James had given me, I hoped to make it look a little better than my current Sunday best, but I did not want to make something that stood out too much with everyone back at the orphanage. I suppose I could have left it with the Atkinsons, like I did with the bird brooch, but it did not feel right to leave something else with them when I did not know what I wanted to do. If I showed up to the orphanage with a dress that looked too extravagant, Sally might have ended up attacking me again and I did not want that to happen.

William returned from wherever he ventured off to not long after I had finished the basic outline of a dress on the back of the fabric. He stood beside the table and looked down at it, his eyes following the pencil markings right the way around until the two lines met once again.

"That was quick. It looks like a dress," he said, nodding at the pencil marks.

"I don't know if it's the right size yet, I have yet to measure it or compare it to my current dress. Although, I'm not sure if this is a good comparison seeing as it has been mended so many times."

"It's a good start. I would have no idea where to begin."

"Maybe that's because you don't wear dresses."

"Hm, maybe."

He laughed and dropped down on the sofa again, staring up at a single painting on the wall above the fireplace. I had not noticed the painting when I first stayed with the Atkinsons and it bared a slight resemblance to the painting at James' shop. In the centre of the painting sat a large manor house surrounded by trees, a field in the distance and the slight glint of water running away from it. I looked at the painting and tried to figure out whether it was real or not. It certainly seemed real, but I did not believe a place like that really existed although I did not have much to compare it to.

The painting looked as though it could have come out of a storybook, as though it had been created solely to be part of a story and nothing more. I stood up, leaving the fabric on the table and standing in front of the painting to get a better look at it. A lot more appeared on the painting then I thought had been on it from a distance. I could make out small butterflies in the background and a bird sitting in the trees looked as though it were singing. It did not appear to be something that came from someone's imagination.

"Rosie painted that. When she was doing her nurse training, she painted a little too and Mother decided she wanted one for in here," William said, joining me in front of the painting.

"Is it a real place?" I asked.

"Yes. It's my Grandparents house, actually. Mother's brother lives there now, and we visit on occasion. I expect we are due to go there in the next few days or so, a Christmas visit."

"It's beautiful."

"It is. Maybe you will be able to come this year, I think you'll like it."

"What are you two up to?" I turned around and greeted Mrs Atkinson who stood in the doorway with her arms folded and a smile on her face.

"Causing trouble," William said.

"That does not surprise me. What's all this?" She motioned to the fabric.

"Oh, James gave that to Lizzie, He wants her to make a new dress by the end of the week, just to see what she can do."

Mrs Atkinson nodded and took a step into the room. She stood beside the table and looked down at the fabric that I had left lying on top but did not say anything. Like William, her eyes followed the pencil mark on the back of the fabric until the two lines joined once again. Her eyes wandered over to the other embellishments that sat on the sofa where I had been sitting, an eyebrow raised as she looked it. I did not want to think the worst, but I had the feeling that Mrs Atkinson did not think James had simply offered me the supplies.

She did not say anything, but I watched her reach down and thumb her way through the thread and other things that I had been given but did not feel like I wanted to use. James had given me some lace which I intended to avoid, some beads and different coloured thread to the one I would use to construct the dress' main structure. From what I had seen in James' shop, he enjoyed using thread as a simple way to add something more to an otherwise plain dress, but I did not think I had the skill to build something out of thread.

"Well, you will certainly have a task ahead of you with constructing the dress, it's a good thing you will be staying with us for the remainder of the week," she said.

"I think that was the idea," I said.

"Don't let me stop you. You can use the dining room table if you would like, it's a lot bigger than this table so you'll have more room."

"Thank you."

"William, don't you have some studying to do?"

"Perhaps."

"Off you go."

William huffed and followed Mrs Atkinson from the room, leaving me alone with the spread-out fabric and the embellishments that I still did not know if I wanted to use. I listened to William's footsteps as they echoed up the stairs, and Mrs Atkinson's as they followed before I gathered up the fabric, tucked the thread, lace, and beading into the fabric and moved into the dining room. I returned to the living room only briefly to ensure that the glass bowl returned to the table.

In the dining room, I spread the fabric out once again and picked my way through the other supplies that James had given me. I looked down at the fabric and took up the pencil, but I did not want to draw anything onto the fabric if I was not going to use it since it would just make the inside of the dress look odd. Instead, I searched the room until I found a crisp bit of paper in a drawer and laid that out on the table.

I chewed on the end of my pencil before starting to doodle on the paper, hoping to come up with something else I could put on the dress. 

~~~

First Published - December 16th, 2020