Evelyn (Cate Blancett x OC Story)

Chapter Five

              Chapter Five

              On Wednesday, Evelyn sat in her room at the back of the theatre with piles of fabric that smelled of mothballs scattered around her feet, waiting for Mr. Finley, the new director, to come and look at her new costume sketches. Following Crawley's replacement by Mr. Finley on Monday morning, her original designs, crafted under Crawley's directive, had been discarded. Even Dolores, one of the stage designers for the upcoming play, had been dismissed. Dolores had stormed into the dress shop the same day. She had been confident she wouldn't have been dismissed, Evelyn thought, but she had followed Mr. Finley's instructions to the letter anyway. The revised sketches for the ball room scene hadn't the adjustable sections she had put into the first, which would have allowed the cast to transition quickly into their final act costumes. Mr. Finley seemed to be adamant against anything efficient or even simple. Her new designs indicated bustle and en train, and they would look, when finished, like court dresses from the nineteenth century, lifelike down to the last stitches.

    Evelyn stood up, stashed the sketches in her briefcase somewhere, and took her coat that hung on the back of the chair. Mr. Finley likely wouldn't arrive until evening, or not even today at all if Evelyn didn't remind him again. There was no hurry to the costumes: the play was months ahead and they might have been the least important matter in the whole production while the rehearsals went on, but she had sat up until late on Monday night, working on the design. She made her way back to the dress store. Pippa and Marionette were busy with clients. Mrs. Roberts had kept the sewers on their toes the whole day, but today it seemed to be only putting them to sleep. Carol, Mrs. Roberts's younger sister, was suffering from migraine headaches and had to stop every few hours to put drops in her eyes and lie down for a few minutes.

    'Is that the C. O. D. order?' said Mrs. Roberts for the second time that morning, stopping everyone and causing Pippa to lower her head and turn to her with a confused, bothered docility. 'Don't you know you're supposed to give the client the strip at the top? How do you expect the man to claim the purchase when it arrives? Where's he? Can you catch him?' Evelyn watched Mrs. Roberts waving her arms to indicate the door, putting up a hand to gesture Pippa to run after the man. Evelyn winked at Pippa on her way out.

    Mr. Finley did come in just after five o'clock. Evelyn returned to the theatre and watched as he looked intently at her models, lifted the parchment and looked at it from both sides and above, without any change in his irritated expression.

    He waited so long to speak, Evelyn thought he was not going to. 'Yes, this is good. Really good. You can see how factual this is compared to the first one, can't you?'

    Evelyn smiled a little, looking at the sketch, too, and trying to figure out how it possibly was better, possibly more functional. 'You had doubts.'

    Mr. Finley shrugged. He was a round man, large in an American way with a black hat and a seedy overcoat but his face had changed now, and glanced at Evelyn with a friendly smile and round black eyes. 'The new set designer's coming on Wednesday morning about nine. We'll get together and have a talk. Looking forward to it, Ms. Freyer.'

    'Likewise.' Mr. Finley left. It was done, Evelyn thought. She looked around the workroom reverently before she closed the door.

    'Madam?' Evelyn turned to Mr. Finley's assistant. Mr. Finley changed his assistants often, too, Evelyn had heard.

    'What is it?'

    'The telephone, Madam.'

    'Thank you.' Evelyn hurried to the corridor, hoping it was Marie. They haven't spoken at all over the weekend.