The Sewing Room Girl
Page 36
‘Senior seamstress?’
‘Senior seamstress, chief seamstress – I don’t care what you call yourself as long as you join me. How would you like to be Miss Clara? Miss Clara, our senior seamstress,’ she announced, as if addressing a customer. ‘I want to develop my dressmaking service into something bigger and higher class. That’s what I want to be known for. You can be known for it too. There’s a flat over the shop, complete with kitchen and bathroom. It’s yours if you want it. I’ll need one of the rooms as a fitting room for clients, but that would still leave you with a sitting room, a bedroom and the box room.’
‘You’re offering me a home?’
‘The moment I saw it, I imagined it full of your embroidery and cushion covers and patchwork. You’ll turn it into a little palace.’
‘What about the name over the door? Are you going to be Mademoiselle Juliette?’ Clara pronounced the name with a flourishing French accent.
‘Actually, I thought I’d be Miss Constance.’
‘Constance? Who’s she when she’s at home?’
‘It reminds me of someone. Actually, what I would really like to have over the door is Constance and Clara.’
‘And Clara?’ Clara stared. ‘You’d do that?’
She burst into tears.
Saturday dinner promised to be a riotous affair, not just because Hal was coming, but because that morning a letter had arrived from Lady Darley – not a postcard, mind, but an actual letter – giving Juliet her new address, thanking her in the warmest terms for her kindness to Lily and assuring her that her services would shortly be called upon.
‘And not just for the girls but for herself,’ said Cecily, reading over Juliet’s shoulder. ‘That’s wonderful.’
‘Yes,’ Juliet said firmly, ‘it is. I’ll be able to watch Izzie grow up. I’ll be the seamstress her mother relies on, the seamstress her oldest sister has a special affection for. If Lady Darley and Lily are both true to me, Izzie will be too. And one day … one day I might even make her wedding dress.’
Cecily hugged her from behind. ‘You’re going to be famous for your wedding dresses, Juliet Harper. Mine is going to be beautiful. Even seeing the design made me cry. I shall probably blub all the way through the ceremony. Are you sure I can’t help to make it?’
‘Positive. It’s my wedding gift to you, though Mrs Livingston has begged to be allowed to do some of the fancy-work. I’m doing the harps, though.’ A scattering of tiny harps, ivory on ivory.
The girls prepared the cottage pie early, and Cecily grated the cheddar to go on top. It could go in the oven later. Feeling festive, Cecily suggested Canterbury pudding to follow. Juliet chucked an extra glass of sherry into it, and then another.
‘Steady on,’ said Cecily. ‘It’s meant to be one glass.’
‘Well, you did say you were feeling festive.’
‘We’ll be feeling a lot more than festive after that.’
William arrived and took Archie for a walk. This was their new routine, a father and son walk each Saturday morning.
‘Can we go and see our new house?’ asked Archie.
‘We can stand on the pavement and look over the garden wall,’ promised William, ‘but only if you promise not to pull faces. We mustn’t scare the people who still live there.’
Juliet squeezed Cecily’s hand, enjoying the look of pure happiness on her friend’s face. The house that Cecily and William would move into after their wedding wasn’t part of Rosie’s empire. That was important. Juliet and Cecily had given notice on Garden Cottage. Juliet might share the flat with Clara for a while … or she might not need to.
She glanced at their marble clock. Hal would be here soon. She moved about the cottage, tidying what was already tidy, too excited to be still. She hadn’t been excited like this since … since she was a girl of fifteen, falling in love for the first time.
When Hal arrived, Cecily dragged him straight into the parlour. ‘Look!’
‘My painting. You’ve still got it.’ His face was bright with pleasure.
‘Of course I have,’ said Juliet. This will have pride of place on our parlour wall one day. She dipped her chin to hide what she feared was a blush.
Thank goodness William and Archie arrived home. She performed the introductions.
‘William, I want you to meet my dear friend, Hal Price. Hal, this is Cecily’s fiancé, William Turton.’
‘He’s my uncle,’ announced Archie, ‘and he’s going to be my new daddy.’
‘And this rascal is Cecily’s son, Archie.’
‘How do you do, Archie?’ said Hal.
‘We’ve just been to see our new house for when Uncle William marries Mummy. Then we went to see Auntie Juley’s new shop. It’s a new home for Hand-finished by Harper.’
‘The name has changed, Archie.’ Warmth expanded inside Juliet’s chest. ‘I didn’t want to say anything until I was certain, but I saw Auntie Clara yesterday and she’s agreed to join the business. It’s going to be called …’ Her chest tightened. What if they didn’t like it? ‘… Constance and Clara.’
‘Who’s Constance?’ asked Archie.
‘Constance is a very special person,’ Hal told him, ‘and one day when you’re older, we’ll tell you about her.’
‘When Uncle William marries us and starts being my daddy, I won’t have an uncle any more. Are you—?’
‘That’s enough of that, young man,’ cried Juliet, not knowing whether to laugh or blush.
‘I think young Archie has a good point,’ said Hal. He addressed Cecily and William. ‘Do you mind if I spirit Juliet away for a while?’
‘Be my guest.’ Cecily gave Juliet an indiscreet nudge.
With happiness radiating through her body and her thoughts scattering to the four winds, Juliet put on her hat and accompanied Hal over the road onto Chorlton Green, where they sat on a bench.
‘The last time I saw you, you said you wanted to talk about the future,’ said Hal. ‘Are you ready to do that now?’
‘Yes. Opening up to Lily and her mother, and helping Lily to open up in her turn, was a healing process for myself as much as it was for Lily. I feel as if I have shed a weight from my heart.’
‘A weight has been shed from my heart as well. All this time, I’ve worried and wondered about you and what really happened. I’ve achieved a great deal professionally and I have a busy life ahead, but it’s not enough. Without you, it’s not enough. There’s never been another girl, no matter how lonely I felt – and there were times when I was desperate with loneliness. But you were the only one I wanted. I went to your grandmother’s house with such hopes, and when she told me you had vanished, it felt as if the world had tilted sideways, and I thought I would have to spend the rest of my days clinging on for dear life.’ He took her hand. ‘Will you put my world to rights for me, Juliet?’
It was a moment before she could speak. ‘I’m falling in love with you for the first time all over again. That’s how it feels. Now and always.’
‘I’m not asking you to give up your work. My own work is important to me and I would never make light of your commitment to yours. I warn you, I might not be the ideal husband, because there will be times when I have to be away for weeks on end. But if you’ll have me, I swear I’ll love you until the day I die and I’ll be the best of fathers to our children.’
She had the warm, comforting and blissfully exciting feeling of everything slipping into place.
‘If you’re serious,’ she said, ‘you’ll have to go down on one knee.’
‘Making me do it properly, are you? I’ll take that as a good sign.’
‘It’s not for my benefit,’ said Juliet, ‘but I think you’ll find Archie will expect it.’
Acknowledgements
I should like to express my gratitude to the following people:
Kirsten Hesketh, whose monthly guest blogs on my website, as well as being enormously enjoyable to read, also took the pressure off me at various crucial moments.
/> Deborah Smith, for her friendship and support. Thanks, Debs.
The members of Deborah’s online reading group, especially Chris Bartholomew, Vera Jevons Wordsworth, Joy Hanley Quale, Celine Fairbrother and Aileen Searle, who were among my first readers.
Marina Byrom, for her kindness and encouragement.
All the team at Allison & Busby, in particular Kelly Smith, Ailsa Floyd and Jenn Goodheart-Smithe for working their magic behind the scenes.
And Jen Gilroy, for always being there.
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About the Author
SUSANNA BAVIN has variously been a librarian, an infant school teacher, a carer and a cook. She lives in Llandudno in North Wales with her husband and two rescue cats, but her writing is inspired by her Mancunian roots.
susannabavin.co.uk
@SusannaBavin
By Susanna Bavin
The Deserter’s Daughter
A Respectable Woman
The Sewing Room Girl
The Poor Relation
Copyright
Allison & Busby Limited
11 Wardour Mews
London W1F 8AN
allisonandbusby.com
First published in Great Britain by Allison & Busby in 2018.
This ebook edition published in Great Britain by Allison & Busby in 2018.
Copyright © 2018 by SUSANNA BAVIN
The moral right of the author is hereby asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All characters and events in this publication other than those clearly in the public domain are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent buyer.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978–0–7490–2358–4