Nineteenth Century Woman Tailor

The small parlor was furnished with a round table and stools adorned with embroidered cushions. Eloise rummaged through a nearby storage cabinet and retrieved a set of afternoon tea utensils.

The tea set was a standard provision in every hotel room. After washing it thoroughly, Eloise arranged two plates of bread, poured coffee, and transferred cream from small pods into a milk jug.

Once the table was set, she knocked on the inner door.

The seamstress emerged, glanced at the spread, and smiled approvingly before calling her two assistants out for lunch.

With her task complete, Eloise gathered the dishes and basket, carried them downstairs to wash, and then returned them to Amy along with a still-warm apple pie.

Amy was inside, combing her hair and changing clothes. She had taken on a part-time job as a waitress in the kitchen and was about to leave. Though she accepted the pie from Eloise, she had no time to enjoy it.

Pocketing this small windfall, Eloise decided not to indulge herself. Instead, she returned home, fetched a bit more money, and headed straight to the fabric shop, where she purchased cotton, poplin, and gauze.

Though she had no time to start sewing yet, it was good to have the materials ready.

Two days later, another bright holiday dawned, the streets damp with melted snow sliding off slanted rooftops. The falling ice was hazardous, and Eloise darted quickly between buildings, clutching the few dollars pooled together by her family as she made her way to the newly chosen house.

When she arrived, Old John and Mrs. John were playing dominoes beneath the first-floor staircase.

They had somehow acquired a small round table, two chairs, and a tiny stove, huddling around it for warmth while gossiping about their hometown—how one man’s son was a wastrel, how another’s daughter had married a useless fellow.

Hearing the door creak, Old John peeked out, spotted Eloise, and nodded to his wife. "The renter’s here. Where’s the key?"

Mrs. John, plump and wearing a nightcap, fumbled through her layers before finally fishing the key from her petticoat pocket.

Only after Old John retrieved it did Eloise step forward, pulling money from her own pocket.

"Is the room still available? I’m here to secure it today."

"Why wait so long? In another three or five days, I’d have gone back to the countryside," Old John grumbled unhappily. He counted the bills carefully before handing her the key.

With the key in hand, no further paperwork was needed. The kind of housing Eloise currently lived in was considered cheap for New York.

At a real estate agency, renting a standalone three-story house would cost about thirty dollars a week, requiring signed documents and, days later, formal tax notices in the mail.

As she climbed the stairs, she passed an open door on the third floor. Inside, a young wife cradled a baby, pacing the hallway to lull it to sleep. She must have been the bank clerk’s wife.

Their apartment had two bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, and a private bath, renting for ten dollars a week.

Eloise knew that in the new place, their family would only share a bathroom with a young typist who lived alone. No more worrying about male neighbors knocking during her morning wash.

Upstairs, she inspected the space thoroughly. She propped the door open, borrowed a bucket, broom, and rag from Old John, and set to work scrubbing and sweeping.

It was unclear how long the place had been vacant—dust coated the floors—but thankfully, the walls were clean, and the wood hadn’t warped or molded.

After mopping and polishing the furniture Old John had left behind, the room soon looked fresh again, right down to the gleaming windows.

She returned the supplies and headed home.

Along the way, Eloise stopped at a secondhand rental shop and leased two wicker suitcases.

Carrying the empty cases back, she packed one with her fabrics and threads, then stuffed another cloth bag with finished alterations—orders to be sent off tomorrow through Louise.

The remaining half-trunk of old clothes, which she had washed and dried during her days off, went into her own suitcase.

Bedding would be wrapped in a sheet tomorrow morning.

When Louise and their aunt returned in the evening, the three of them resumed packing—pots, pans, personal belongings.

By the next day, after finishing work, Eloise came home to find Louise, who had taken the morning off, already made one trip with the luggage and was now returning by carriage.

Eloise helped load the remaining items, then called secondhand dealers to dismantle and haul away the two iron beds.

Standing in the empty old flat, she swept the floors and walls once more, scrubbing away soot stains from the stove. With one day left on the lease, she returned the key to the landlady.

As she left, carrying a sack of coal, the landlady even handed her a packet of biscuits.

Louise waited in the carriage, and the sisters set off for their new home.

"You’ve seen the room—how many beds do we need? I’ve already told the secondhand dealers; they’ll deliver them tonight."

Louise glanced back at the street they’d lived on for a year or two. Her memories lingered on the time when Eloise and Thomas had first arrived—cramped, yes, but no one had complained. Now, leaving felt unexpectedly bittersweet.

She turned to Eloise, who was scribbling a list with a pencil, brimming with excitement for their new life.

"We won’t need to buy wooden buckets or basins. But we might need curtains—those windows are too bright."

Louise found herself caught up in Eloise’s enthusiasm, musing about what else to add to their new space.

Under Eloise’s arrangement, the sisters would share the slightly larger room with two single beds.

Their aunt would take the smaller room.

If Bella visited, she’d sleep beside their aunt. If Thomas came, he’d make do on a rented secondhand sofa in the living room.

Furniture could be acquired gradually after moving in.

The carriage Eloise and Louise had hired was little more than a covered tin box with a bench inside. Packed to the brim with their belongings, the trip cost just a few dimes.

At the new place, they hauled bundle after bundle upstairs.

By the time they finished and paid the driver, the sun had dipped low, casting the sky in twilight hues.

Louise was drenched in sweat but pleased with the house—at least they had some privacy now, and a proper living room to host friends.

As she considered grabbing a quick meal nearby, Eloise dug into one of the parcels and pulled out paper-wrapped slices of sausage, prepped by their aunt that morning.

She had instructed Eloise to deliver some to the neighbors personally.

Eloise left a plate for Louise and took another package downstairs to knock on the neighbors' doors.

The sky was gradually darkening, and by this time, most people would have returned home from work, preparing to cook dinner.

She first knocked on the door of a family of three. The wife, neatly dressed and efficient, answered and curiously asked Eloise what she needed.

"You can call me Eloise. Today, we moved some things upstairs, and it must have been quite noisy for you. This is a small housewarming gift—please take it. I hope we can help each other out in the future."

As she spoke, Eloise pressed the paper-wrapped package into the woman's hands. Mrs. Lales opened it on the spot and, upon seeing a bundle of fragrant sausages, smiled warmly.

"This is too kind! I didn’t hear any noise at all! You can call me Mrs. Lales. Oh, wait a moment..."

Mrs. Lales held Eloise back and hurried into her kitchen, returning shortly with a plate of warm caramel cupcakes she had made herself, urging Eloise to take them.

Eloise accepted with a smile, carried the cupcakes upstairs, and then headed to the home of the female typist.

The typist was two years older than Eloise—introverted, with classic blonde hair and blue eyes, her hairstyle neat and unassuming.

After listening to Eloise’s lengthy explanation, she only replied with a solemn "Thank you."

She introduced herself as Theo and promptly reciprocated with a bottle of fresh milk of roughly equal value.

She explained that it was from her milk delivery subscription, but she had worked late today and hadn’t touched it.

Unlike Mrs. Lales’ warmth, Theo wore a serious expression and repeatedly emphasized to Eloise,

"This milk will cause stomach upset if stored for more than twelve hours. But I don’t drink milk at night—I prefer adding a spoonful of honey to it in the morning. The twelve-hour limit is based on my own three personal experiments, so it’s likely accurate..."

Though introverted, Theo was oddly rigid and persistent.

By the time Eloise’s ears were practically burning from the lecture and she had repeatedly agreed, Theo was still reminding her as she walked upstairs to finish the milk within the next half hour.

Eloise then went to deliver sausages to Old John, the building superintendent, and received half a cabbage in return from Mrs. John.

Louise was sitting at the table, using a wooden fork to eat the cupcakes, watching Eloise make trip after trip upstairs. In just over ten minutes, they had gathered enough food and drinks.

"Terrifying. People who are good with words are terrifying," Louise muttered, shuddering at the thought of having to socialize with neighbors herself—she’d probably need ten minutes of mental preparation just to knock on a door.

"It’s nothing much. Mainly, it’s about leaving a good impression and getting a sense of what our neighbors are like," Eloise said, unpacking a glass and a pot, planning to heat the milk—the kind that would cause stomach trouble if drunk after twelve hours.

Before long, the two sisters finished their meal, and the secondhand store delivered their beds. The delivery service covered transport but not carrying them upstairs.

Fortunately, their aunt arrived soon after, and the three of them managed to haul the bed frames up after several trips. Eloise assembled them one by one and collapsed onto the finished bed, exhausted.

The foot of the single bed faced the balcony window, where clusters of moonlit clouds were visible after nightfall. In a New York not yet dominated by skyscrapers, the night sky was clear and pristine.

After resting for a while, Eloise returned to the living room. On the table were the landlord’s biscuits, slices of sausage, warm milk, cupcakes, and the cabbage soup their aunt had just prepared.

The secondhand store wouldn’t deliver the chairs until the next day, so their aunt sat while the two sisters leaned against the table, chatting and laughing as they ate.

…