The Sewing Room Girl

by Susanna Bavin

  ‘Keep it, then,’ Rachel said bluntly to a new girl called Lucy, who claimed she didn’t know how she would part with her child. ‘But if you do, how will you manage?’ She stared at Lucy, forcing an answer.

  ‘Well … I couldn’t.’

  ‘Exactly, so stop wallowing.’

  And that was what it came down to. Even if Juliet could cobble together a sufficient wage, there was still the stigma of illegitimacy to contend with, which would blacken both their names. Adoption would give the baby respectability and material comfort with parents who longed for a child.

  And she … she would spend the rest of her life wondering.

  ‘If mine is a boy,’ Rachel declared, ‘I’m calling him Jonah, because I’m as big as a whale.’

  ‘You won’t know,’ Juliet pointed out. ‘We never know whether the babies are boys or girls.’

  That was the last time she saw Rachel, because Rachel went to the attic that day. Juliet and Violet glanced at one another, acknowledging in silent apprehension that they would be next. But, unexpectedly, it was Evie who was next. Before the day was out, she was followed by Violet.

  ‘So you must be good, quiet girls,’ said Yardley, ‘because Mrs Maddox and Mrs Fletcher’ – this was the midwife, a woman Juliet had never set eyes on, though her name was known by all – ‘will have their hands full.’

  Florence looked at Juliet. ‘You next.’

  As if Florence had worked a magic spell, Juliet felt a warm gush between her thighs.

  Juliet shifted uncomfortably in a bizarre half-world. Sometimes Mrs Maddox was there, sometimes Mrs Fletcher, sometimes both. They would slap her face and speak in bracing voices to haul her back to her senses. They said things her mind couldn’t cling on to and, to her horror, Mrs Fletcher fiddled about inside her. Each time they left her, they said things like ‘Good girl. You’re doing well’, their voices booming one second and fading the next. They said, ‘This will help,’ and a soft cloth was pressed over her nose and mouth. Her head filled with a sweet, cloying smell that sent her swirling into a strange grogginess where she couldn’t tell if she was awake or asleep and the pains were part of the nightmare.

  As the pains drew closer together, each more excruciating than the last, Mrs Maddox and Mrs Fletcher were there more. Yardley was there sometimes too, or maybe that was part of the dream. When the intensity of the pain made her cry out, something was thrust into her mouth, a rolled-up rag, with the sharp words, ‘No screaming. Bite on that,’ and suddenly she wasn’t in bed any more, she was in the park, flat on her back, with William Turton’s grotty handkerchief suffocating her. He was flattening her, hammering his way into her, pushing, pushing, harder and harder, until she was nearly ripped in two.

  ‘Push! Here it comes. Push hard!’

  Struggling to shove him off her, she gave an almighty heave that practically broke her back, then a sudden easing sent shock rippling through her.

  ‘Can you manage, Yardley?’ Mrs Fletcher’s voice. ‘I must get back to Evie.’ And she was gone.

  Juliet lay there, trembly and exhausted. A cry broke the quiet, and all traces of grogginess vanished. She pushed herself up.

  ‘What – what is it?’ she whispered.

  Yardley wrapped the infant in a blanket.

  ‘Please …’

  ‘Never you mind. I’ll be back in a minute. You’re not finished yet.’

  Fear and despair welled up in her. Before Yardley could take a step, Mrs Maddox appeared in the doorway, insisting, ‘Come quick,’ before disappearing. The unflappable Yardley looked flustered. There was a scream from somewhere, abruptly cut off, and Yardley thrust the bundle at Juliet with a brief, ‘Here, hold this,’ before she rushed away.

  Juliet held her baby. Her baby, her own child. She tilted her head to look at the tiny face and fell irretrievably in love.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Adeline’s garden sparkled in the sunshine following the showery morning. Juliet turned from the window. She had been here two days, though her heart wasn’t here, that was certain. She had no means of knowing where it was. Constance could be anywhere. Her little girl. Constance Mary Harper. Thank heaven she had had the presence of mind to check the baby’s gender in those few precious moments. So few – her heart clenched with pain. Just a few piercingly sweet moments with her daughter, and then Mrs Maddox had rushed in, wrenched the baby away and rushed out again, leaving her slack-jawed with shock.

  She had tried to follow, only to crumple in a heap on the floor. Almost immediately Mrs Fletcher was there, then Yardley. They lifted her onto the bed. Yardley held her down while Mrs Fletcher manipulated her stomach. Was Constance a twin? But it was the afterbirth.

  It was difficult to separate out what had happened next. She had sobbed so much that they used the sweet-smelling stuff on her. When she woke, she ached all over, and when she used the chamber pot, a smelly discharge came out. Days and nights merged in a blur of pain. They kept rousing her to drink cordial and they lay her on her left side, propped up by pillows, which had eased the cramps in her stomach.

  When at last she woke feeling better, panic coursed through her. Constance – where is Constance? Please don’t let her have been taken away already.

  ‘Back in the land of the living, are we? That was a nasty infection.’ It was Yardley, brisk and pleasant. ‘Can you manage a bite to eat? You’ll need to wait a while, mind. We’ve got visitors due any minute.’

  What strength she possessed drained from her muscles. ‘Visitors? Here to adopt?’ Her heart delivered an almighty clout. ‘My baby?’

  ‘No. Not that it makes any odds. They’ll all be gone soon.’

  When Yardley left, Juliet staggered in search of the nursery, only to blunder into Mrs Maddox, who escorted her back to bed. The key turned when Mrs Maddox left.

  They were cautious with her after that, slanting glances her way. Her questions went ignored. Neither did her pretence of calming down fool them.

  A couple of days later Mrs Maddox came in, followed by Yardley. Mrs Maddox looked serious.

  ‘It’s for your own good,’ she said.

  Yardley appeared round the other side of the bed, and in that moment she knew with blinding clarity what would happen today: a cloth was clamped over her nose and mouth, that familiar, cloying smell – the hateful sensation of whirling and falling … falling—

  She clawed her way back from the brink. The room slurred in and out of focus. She was alone. With a colossal effort, she heaved herself out of bed, staggered and tumbled, the floor whooshing up to meet her. She crawled to the door. It was locked. Sleep overcame her then, right there on the floor. At some point she jerked awake, her head spinning. Fighting off waves of dizziness, she dragged herself up and stumbled to the window, crashing into the chair beside it and banging her forehead on the window bars. The room rolled around her. She clung to the bars, gasping and dry-mouthed. Then, looking down, she stopped breathing. A carriage stood outside.

  She sat down so suddenly her teeth jolted. The next thing she knew, she was waking up, struggling back to consciousness. How could she have slept? The carriage had gone – and a baby inside it. Anguish washed through her, rendering her clear-headed, but only briefly. The dizziness returned, as did the sensation of mind and innards slewing about. Then Adeline was in the room, a taunting smile on her face. She woke up to find her cheek pressed against a bar, her neck so stiff that the tiniest movement sent pain twanging into the back of her head. She felt ill and heavy-limbed, and longed to lie down.

  A carriage drove through the gates. She pressed against the bars to see. The driver climbed down to open the door and a man got out. He turned to offer his hand and his wife followed him. They kept hold of each other’s hands for an extra moment. She saw the crowns of their hats turn as they shared a glance, and she felt the moment pass between them. The wife looked at the house, then she looked up and Juliet exclaimed aloud, except that it came out as a strangled slur.

  Was it—could it be
?

  The next time she woke, struggling through a mass of weird dreams that vanished like smoke, she was tucked up in bed.

  Even now Juliet didn’t know whether it had happened. The lady she had seen outside Mademoiselle Antoinette’s wearing her sleeve design – had she really come to Mrs Maddox’s house? Or was it a dream? She had dreamt of her grandmother, and Adeline certainly hadn’t been there. She would never know. She wasn’t even meant to know she had had a little girl. Oh, Constance … Constance.

  Now here she was at Adeline’s house, with staff to make her bed and cook her meals.

  ‘Do they know … about the baby?’ she asked Adeline.

  ‘What baby is that?’

  She gasped. Adeline regarded her coldly until she had to look away.

  What baby is that?

  Tomorrow was the last Sunday of the month and she found herself anticipating Clara’s visit in a bothersome way. She badly needed Clara to be well and thriving so that, in some small way, the loss of Constance would have resulted in something worthwhile.

  But Sunday came and went with no sign of Clara.

  ‘Doesn’t she visit any more?’ Juliet asked.

  ‘What for? I see her at work. Speaking of which, you’ve lolled around here long enough. You start work tomorrow.’

  ‘Fine.’ If Adeline was brusque, Juliet could be too. ‘I assume I’ll be sewing.’

  ‘Assume what you like.’

  Juliet stood beside her grandmother outside a vast building with TEWSON’S TEXTILES painted across the brickwork. She remembered standing on the hill above Annerby, seeing its factories, so dark and forbidding, but the windows here were sparkling. She recalled Mother quoting Adeline on the subject of good light. Even Mrs Whicker had ended up quoting Adeline Tewson.

  Adeline led the way upstairs. Juliet emerged onto a landing with doors along one side, while on the other was nothing but a rail between her and a drop to the floor below. She gazed upon ranks of women working treadle sewing machines. Adeline strode ahead; she hurried to catch up. A woman in a grey jacket with red piping came towards them. She stood aside and curtseyed. Adeline swept by without so much as a nod. Mortified by her grandmother’s rudeness, Juliet murmured a good morning.

  Further along, Adeline waited for her. She gestured over the workroom below.

  ‘My empire. Are you impressed? You should be. This is a magnificent achievement for a woman. I’ve had to work twice as hard as any man.’

  It was impossible not to be impressed. All those machines, all those women. All the women looked the same, each one bending over her work, concentrating on the needle flashing in and out, expert fingers guiding the fabric. Then, with a snip of the scissors, the item was finished, folded and dropped into a basket on the floor even as the woman leant the other way to pluck the next piece from a basket on the other side. No one spoke, no one looked round. It was always work, work, work with Mother: Clara’s words. Juliet remembered Adeline’s description of taking on her first three workers and sacking one at the end of the first day. Did these women work under a similar threat?

  ‘Do you still consider it will be, and I quote, “fine” to work here? A fancy sewing room and a second-rate shop in the middle of nowhere – you don’t know what real work is.’

  ‘I’ll manage,’ she replied.

  Adeline was on the move again. Juliet scurried behind. A door opened onto a staircase. She thought Adeline would lead her downstairs to the workroom, but Adeline went up.

  Leading her through another door, Adeline said, ‘This is the next-door building. When I took it over, I had doors knocked through on each floor.’

  This building didn’t have a vast work floor with overlooking landing. Adeline opened a door to reveal a long sewing room with lines of women sitting at machines. How light it was. Yet the windows, though clean, weren’t especially large, and the brightness was the same all over the room.

  ‘Electricity,’ said Adeline.

  ‘Is it true the lamps turn on and off without you going near them?’ Juliet whispered in awe.

  Adeline indicated a switch in the centre of a small brass square mounted on the wall. ‘According to the literature, flicking the switch is so easy that a lady may do it. No need to trouble the servants.’

  Juliet’s fingers itched. All those lamps being extinguished in one go was more than she could imagine.

  Adeline opened door after door upon sewing rooms where women worked diligently. Presiding over each room was a woman in a grey jacket with red piping.

  Adeline opened another door. ‘My latest venture.’

  Juliet stepped inside, expecting something different, but it was another sewing room with ranks of machines and a woman in a grey jacket with red piping.

  Adeline said, ‘There are three of these rooms.’

  She opened the door on the next. It was the same, except that there were two women in grey jackets with red piping. One was at the desk at the front and the other was bending over a pile of finished pieces, scrutinising them. She straightened – and it was Clara.

  ‘Auntie Clara!’ Juliet hurried to greet her. ‘You’re an overseer. That’s a responsible job.’

  ‘Don’t patronise me!’ Clara hissed. ‘Just because you’ve fallen on your feet doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten you turning up out of nowhere, homeless and broke. And in a certain condition,’ she added.

  She stared. ‘I only meant to congratulate you.’

  ‘I’d rather be sewing, if you must know. Do you know what she’s got me doing? Overseeing the quality, that’s what.’

  ‘It shows she trusts you.’

  ‘Do you know who gets fined if a single imperfect piece gets through? I do. You’d think it would be the woman who did the shoddy sewing, wouldn’t you, but oh no, it’s muggins here that gets stung for it.’

  ‘Back to work, Tewson,’ said Adeline.

  ‘Yes, madam.’

  ‘What do you think?’ Adeline asked, leading Juliet away.

  ‘She doesn’t seem very happy.’

  ‘I didn’t mean Clara. I meant what I’ve shown you. Did you see what they were sewing?’

  ‘It looked like garments.’

  ‘Tailor-mades. It’s the latest thing, finished garments to buy in shops.’

  ‘Finished? What about fitting? Who’s going to buy something that isn’t fitted?’

  ‘Plenty of women. This is the future of dressmaking. You look shocked. You’ll never make a businesswoman. No vision.’

  ‘What about all the seamstresses?’

  ‘Those worth their salt will have work. Folk with money will always want to spend it, especially if they think they’re getting something special. The Mademoiselle Antoinettes of this world – or to give her her real name, Elsie Bradshaw – will always have a market. But women further down the pecking order will have greater access to good-quality clothing. I started Tewson’s Tailor-mades in the autumn, and orders are climbing. I want my order books full. I’ve always wanted to see women wearing my garments. I could never have had a salon, not with my background, the widow of a letter carrier, and coming from where I did, but this will do nicely.’

  ‘And you want me to work one of the sewing machines?’

  ‘I said you lacked vision. No, girl, you’re my new designer.’

  Adeline showed Juliet into a parlour overlooking the back garden. A fire was burning, and on the table was a box like those Adeline had brought to Mrs Maddox’s house.

  ‘Here’s a list of the garments I want next.’ Adeline turned to leave.

  ‘Wait,’ said Juliet. What a bizarre way to start a new job. Meeting Adeline’s hard gaze, she quelled the impulse to seek instructions. Needing to stand up to her grandmother, she asked, ‘How much work will it take to repay you for my time with Mrs Maddox?’

  ‘You make it sound as if you’re old enough to strike out on your own. You’ve no choice but to stay here with me. Be grateful you have a skill to offer. I wouldn’t have looked twice at you otherwise.’
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  The door shut behind her. After a moment Juliet went to test it. Was she locked in? No. She went to the window, recognising elephant’s ears in the borders, their large rubbery leaves still winter-red. Hal had told her their proper name, but she couldn’t recall it.

  Five months. That was how long she had spent at Mrs Maddox’s and it was how long she would stay here. She baulked at the thought of living so long with her grandmother. Would Adeline consider the debt repaid by then? What did she owe Adeline, anyway? Adeline hadn’t sent her away to help her but to preserve her own reputation. If there had been even a trace of warmth in Adeline’s actions, it would be easier for her to be here now, but she didn’t want to work for Adeline and she certainly didn’t want to live here.

  ‘Well then, do something about it.’

  The words, uttered aloud, made her feel stronger. Yes, she would design for Tewson’s Tailor-mades, but she must also look to the future – and more than look. She thought of Ingleby’s. Judging by the number of designs Miss Lindsay had required while she was away, they were delighted with her. How much was she owed? One guinea per design. She had supplied sixteen, though that didn’t mean they had all been accepted, and she had left two guineas in Mr Owen’s keeping. Then there were the half-crowns and shillings for the garments that customers had ordered. And presumably Miss Lindsay would want more designs.

  Adeline was bound to want to maintain control over her, so she would have to keep any Ingleby’s work a secret. She would go there tomorrow after Adeline left for work. She had no money for her fare, so that evening she asked Adeline what she had earned sewing for Mrs Maddox.

  ‘You don’t require it at present,’ Adeline declared. ‘You’ll get your dues, but you’ll have to wait.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For me to decide to give it to you. One: don’t be impertinent, and two: the more you clamour for your money, the less inclined I’ll be to hand it over.’