FASHION-DETECTIVE

Lili Wilkinson
xcuse me? Is anyone home?’
The cottage is small and cramped and smells of mildew.
A few coals glow in the hearth. Kitty removes her bonnet
and shakes the rain from it. Curls cling to her cheeks like
clammy weeds. She shivers and moves closer to the fire, where two
ancient armchairs crouch on the hearth.
For a moment Kitty thinks she’s alone, but something moves
in the shadows and she sees the old woman, sitting in one of the
armchairs. Gnarled and twisted like an old branch, the woman
might have been sitting there forever. It’s impossible to tell where
the armchair ends and where the woman begins. Milky eyes
blink. Paper-dry skin sinks into a toothless mouth. The only signs
of life are the faltering movements of her twisted fingers, fumbling
and catching as she pushes an ancient needle through scraps of
fabric and newspaper, snipped carefully into tiny diamond shapes.
‘I’m so sorry’, says Kitty, taking a step backwards. ‘I didn’t
realise anyone was home. I got caught in the rain, you see …’
The old woman’s claw-like fingers grope and clutch at the
needle and thread. Her breathing is ragged, with a deep, chesty
whistle. Kitty glances around at the dark corners of the cottage
and sees decades of dust and dry leaves.
‘I didn’t know someone lived up here’, she says.
Kitty wonders if Ruth ever came to this place, if she ever met
this woman. Maybe this woman was the last person to see Ruth
alive? Looks like it has been a long while since the old woman has
seen anything, but still …
‘She was my cousin’, says Kitty, stepping towards the woman
as she fumbles in her reticule. The newspaper clipping is a little
damp from the rain. Kitty slides it into the old woman’s hands,
the black ink headline shrieking familiar words:
Unknown, England, Doll’s dress, c.1865
SEARCH FAILS TO RECOVER MISSING GIRL
The woman’s fingers brush over the newsprint and slowly,
creakily, she pushes the paper into her basket, where it joins the
diamond-shaped scraps.
‘I’m sorry’, says Kitty. ‘I really didn’t mean to disturb you.
I just … they never found her, you see. And I just can’t help
wondering.’
The rain pounds on the roof of the little cottage. Kitty shivers.
She doesn’t want to go back out there. She looks around for a
coal scuttle or a woodpile to build the fire up, but there is nothing.
She holds out her hands to the few dying embers. Her wet clothes
are sticking to her skin. She glances at the old woman.
‘Do you even know I’m here?’ asks Kitty, half to herself.
The old woman laboriously pulls the needle and thread through
a tiny scrap of blue cloth. It is sky blue. Ruth used to wear a hat
with ribbons that colour. Kitty can see them bouncing above yellow
woven straw and chestnut curls as Ruth races through waist-high
summer grass, shrieking at some game or other.
Unknown, England, Doll’s dress, c.1865
Kitty blows on her hands to warm them. She has to get out
of her wet clothes. She shrugs off her waterlogged jacket and
taffeta dress, letting them slop to the floor. She removes two wet
petticoats and then, with a sideways glance at the old woman,
unties the ribbons supporting her crinoline, and steps out of it,
like a bird released from a cage. She unlaces her boots, unhooks
her ruined silk stockings from their garters and peels them off.
Underneath, her toes are blue-white from cold. With stiff fingers
she pulls at the ribbons of her corset, and it joins the rest of her
garments on the floor in a soggy heap, the white muslin and
cotton turned grey from mud and water.
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