The Hat Shop on the Corner (2 page)

‘Miss Matthews?’

‘I’m sorry, Mr Harrington. I knew there were plans for the redevelopment of the street, but I wasn’t aware that my mother had already considered selling the business.’

‘I suppose, under the circumstances,’ he said, looking at her with what appeared genuine concern, ‘she wanted to do what was best.’

‘The best!’

Ellie swallowed hard. She felt hurt, threatened. Who could say what was best when her mother was dead and buried and she was the only beneficiary of her will? A simple document, the will included the shop, their second-floor apartment in a Georgian building in Hatch Street, and a small savings account that had already been depleted by the costs of the funeral.

‘I have no wish to intrude at a time of grief but I will leave you a copy of the contract to read.’ He withdrew a large brown envelope from the leather briefcase he had opened on the wooden counter. ‘If you want to discuss it with me or my partners over the next few days or weeks, whenever, we are at your disposal.’

Ellie tried to control the tears welling in her eyes. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

‘Bound to be an awful time,’ he murmured. ‘I should go. Here’s my card if you need me and once again my sympathy on your mother’s passing. She was a lovely woman.’

Despite his stern expression he seemed kind. Glancing at his card, she could see he was a senior partner in the law firm. He was young – thirty-five or thirty-six – for such a position. She wondered if her mother had liked him, trusted him.

Ellie walked him to the door, saying polite goodbyes, before watching his tall figure in the dark grey suit turn back up towards Dawson Street. She fingered the envelope. No, she’d read it later when she went home. For now she’d concentrate on getting the shop spick and span, even if it included tackling the massive spider web up in the corner near the top shelf. She’d better get used to doing such things, for now there was no one else.

Hot and tired, she had an immense feeling of satisfaction after a few hours’ cleaning and tidying and washing down dusty paintwork. For once she had not dissolved with grief and she had actually lost track of time. Except for a break at lunch when she had slipped across the road to buy a sandwich and some milk, she had been permanently ensconced in the shop.

Suddenly she realized that someone was knocking loudly on the shop door. Was it that Neil Harrington again? Perhaps he had forgotten something. She tried to tidy herself, then stepped forward and opened the door. It was a customer.

‘I’m sorry,’ she apologized, ‘but we’re closed.’

The determined middle-aged woman on the doorstep paid absolutely no heed and brushed past her to stand inside the shop.

‘Where’s Madeleine?’ she demanded. ‘I have been trying to contact her for the past three weeks. Twice I’ve been to Dublin but the shutters were down. I tried phoning, I—’

‘I’m very sorry,’ explained Ellie. ‘My mother passed away two weeks ago. She had been sick for a while.’

The woman looked pale and for a second seemed to reel with the news.

‘Oh my God! I can’t believe it, poor Madeleine!’ she gushed, fiddling with her handbag. ‘I just can’t believe it. I was here with Madeleine only a couple of months ago ordering a hat.’

‘A hat?’

‘Yes, it’s for my daughter’s wedding.’

‘When is the wedding?’ asked Ellie.

‘It’s on Saturday,’ wailed the woman. ‘That’s why I came in today to collect it.’

Ellie felt an instant of panic. She hadn’t noticed any completed hat ready for collection either in the shop or in the small workroom out the back.

‘Sorry, I only came in today to sort a few things out and tidy up. Perhaps you could give me some details of the hat you ordered?’

‘It’s a sort of dusky pink, with one of those big wide brims with a slight upturn. Your mother had found some fabric in just the right colour to go with my outfit and she was trimming it with silk flowers and a swirl of ribbon.’

Uneasy, Ellie was almost certain there wasn’t a hat of that description anywhere in the small shop. She’d check every box and bag to be sure.

‘Listen, Mrs . . .?’

‘The name is Maureen Cassidy.’

‘Well, Mrs Cassidy, would you like to sit down while I just check my mother’s workroom and storeroom?’

‘Oh, that would be lovely, dear. My feet are killing me from walking all round town.’

Ellie settled her mother’s customer with a copy of
Vogue
before trawling through all the boxes stacked on the floor in the back room and making one more round of the hatstands. There was one hat crown in a rich, deep rose colour on a block. She had to find her mother’s hard-backed notebook to see the order, the rough design she had been contemplating. At last under a pile of tulle and organza she found it. There, in her mother’s fine writing, were the order and the rough sketch for Mrs Cassidy, with a completion date of two weeks ago. What was she going to tell the customer? She went back out front.

‘I always love reading these stylish magazines,’ said the woman, smiling up at her expectantly.

‘Mrs Cassidy, I did find your hat on one of the blocks in the back but I’m afraid it’s not finished.’

‘Not finished!’

‘I’m sorry but it must have been one of the last things my mother was working on before she went into the hospital.’

‘Not finished . . . but what am I to do? Lucy’s wedding is on Saturday. It’s all organized. I have my dress and a little jacket and the most darling shoes and a handbag, but I have to have a hat. I’m the mother of the bride . . . What am I going to do?’

Ellie stood there feeling awful, unsure of what to say, for not finished was an understatement: the hat was barely begun.

‘Not finished, you say?’

‘Not even near being finished,’ she admitted candidly.

‘But couldn’t someone else finish it, do the rest? There must be someone?’

Ellie shook her head. ‘This was my mother’s business. She employed no one else.’

Mrs Cassidy looked as if she would burst into tears.

‘There must be something someone can do? Where else am I going to find a hat that will match my outfit at this late hour!’

Ellie felt guilty. Her mother had prided herself on never letting a customer down, on always having the work done, the hats and ornamental headpieces ready on time to be collected by her clients.

‘I can finish the piece,’ she volunteered, tilting the notebook in her hands as she considered it. Was she talented enough to step into her mother’s shoes, to continue her mother’s work, to finish off the piece to the customer’s satisfaction, to create something with the style and panache that Madeleine Matthews always did?

‘You?’

‘Yes, I am also a milliner, trained by my mother. I’ve spent most of my childhood and growing years in this place and have often helped her with her work. I studied art and textiles in college and have a very sound knowledge of design. Besides, my mother has left a copy of the design here in this notebook.’

Maureen Cassidy studied the coloured drawing. ‘Are you sure you’d be able to do it?’

‘Of course,’ Ellie assured her. ‘I have worked on many hats.’

She simply couldn’t let down her mother or this nice woman. Whether it was out of loyalty or love or the big soft heart her mother and friends were always teasing her about, or some moment of utter madness in her bereavement, Ellie found herself promising to complete the hat and have it ready for the customer in less than twenty-four hours. It was a promise she had every intention of keeping.

Ellie couldn’t believe that she had made such a rash promise to one of her mother’s customers. What had possessed her? However, holding the stiffened rose-coloured crown in her hand she knew that it was the right thing to do. She wanted to protect not only her mother’s reputation but that of the hat shop. Maureen Cassidy deserved the very best and Ellie was determined to work all night if she had to, to achieve exactly the design her mother had sketched out so precisely in her notepad. She would simply finish the job. She had grown up with the world of millinery, shaping the materials on the hat blocks, sewing and stitching and steaming, bending brim wires and covering them, hand-rolling silk petals and flowers, trimming feathers, fixing ribbons; from her mother she had learned all the skills needed to create the perfect piece of art that was a hat. A hat that would make Mrs Cassidy shine at her daughter’s wedding in three days’ time!

The street outside was quiet, a few passers-by gazing at the window before hurrying on their way to the bus or the Luas tram as the town began to unwind and the shops shut. She watched as the newsagent’s and Scottie O’Loughlin in the old toy and joke shop pulled down their shutters for the night. Mr Farrell from the antiques shop five doors down checked his keys as he locked up, the newspaper under his arm as he headed up the street. Over the past two years South Anne Street had changed. Property prices had skyrocketed and some of the shops had been forced to close down. A few landlords had refused to renew the leases of their existing tenants, knowing they could sell to the developers for a huge price. The woman from Killiney had closed up her beautiful gift shop further down six months ago, and it still lay idle along with a few others, their shopfronts empty and neglected. Ellie remembered South Anne Street as a bustling thoroughfare with a range of shops run by a myriad of characters, everyone knowing everyone else. It was a shame the way things were changing.

The street-lights flickered on as one by one the rest of the shops and businesses in the street closed for the night.

I’d better run out and get something to eat, thought Ellie, pulling on her coat. She raced to the deli near Duke Lane to buy a roll and some soup and a wrap, for she intended to work for the rest of the evening. She was trying to balance her purchases and open the shop door when she noticed the little black cat again, miaowing for attention.

‘Scat! Go on, scat!’ she called, trying to shoo it away. But the cat pushed its way in between her feet. Terrified that she would hurt it, with her key stuck in the door and her soup carton wobbling ominously and about to spill all over the two of them, Ellie found herself lurching forward and landing in a heap on her own tiled doorstep as the shop door opened. The soup was saved but the bag with her supper in it lay beside her on the ground. The little cat tilted its head curiously at her and a second later pulled out a piece of chicken from the fallen wrap and gobbled it up.

‘You, you!’ she threatened.

The cat stood for a few seconds as if trying to make up its mind. Its small black body tense, it stared at her then stepped past her into the shop and jumped up into the chair with the blue cushion near the window.

As she stood up, Ellie burst out laughing, something she hadn’t done in weeks. She was tempted to scoop up the small creature and bury her face in the comfort of its warm fur, but she was afraid to scare it. Inside she sat down in the tiny kitchenette and took out what was left of her supper, holding her breath as the cat appeared again. Minouche, the street cat her mother had adopted, knew the shop well and settled itself patiently to watch her eat.

‘I suppose you’re hungry too.’ She tossed it a bit more of the chicken wrap, which it delicately chewed. The cat eyed her intently as Ellie poured it some milk in the lid of her empty soup carton. Whether she wanted it or not, she guessed she had company for the night.

Ellie concentrated for the next few hours, discovering there was a bit less of the dusky rose pink sinamay material than she needed. She would have to be careful or there would not be enough for the trimmings. She cut delicate pieces of the fabric and folded them gently over the fine wired shape she’d created, concentrating as she didn’t want the material to tear before she lightly stitched and glued it together. She counted each shape, laying them carefully on the table before she began to search for the perfect piece of gossamer silk that would cover the joins and create a rim of colour round the brim. She wished her fingers were as deft in working the fabric as her mother’s and berated herself as part of the sinamay tore and ravelled. There definitely wouldn’t be enough. What was she going to do? She had three or four more loops of petals to form and she had run out of material. She could feel a sense of panic invade her as she knew there was no guarantee she could match the colour, let alone order more in the next day or two. She would have to be inventive, perhaps use a different colour or shade for the underside, and for one or two rolls of heavy rose petals. But what colour? Another pink, a cream, green? She worked carefully and, finding a piece of pale pink and a piece of cranberry, she tried them. The cranberry was too strong but the paler pink would work. Grabbing some cream the same colour as the trim, she twirled and fixed it into position. She worked for hours, and realized that the sense of pleasure she got must be akin to the feelings experienced by her mother when she was creating her millinery confections.

The hat looked beautiful. It was perfectly balanced from all angles, with a medium brim and the ideal height.

When Ellie realized that she was totally satisfied with it, she gasped with surprise to see that the clock on the wall said twelve thirty. Even the cat over in the corner was fast asleep. She put everything away neatly, pins, scissors and needles in a safe place. Proud of her work, she placed the hat on a stand.