The needlework room at The Castle had long cutting tables and tall windows set so high you couldn’t see out of them, and that was where we spent most of our days. In winter we’d huddle by the old stove in the corner, in summer we’d spread out round the room in gaggles so that we could gossip away from those nuns’ ears, which was sharp as pins.
It was all hand-stitching, mind, no sewing machines in those days of course. And by the time I was ten I knew which needle to use with which fabrics and which kind of thread, and I could do a dozen types of stitch, from simple running stitch and back stitch, to fancy embroidery like wheatear and French knots, and I loved to do them as perfect and even as possible so you could hardly tell a human hand had made them. Sister Mary was a good teacher and loved her subject, and I suppose she passed her enthusiasm on to us, so before long I could name any fabric with my eyes closed, just by the feel, tell the difference between crêpe and cambric, galatea and gingham, kersey and linsey-woolsey, velvet and velvetine, and which was best for which job.
Not that we saw a lot of fine fabrics, mind, it was mostly plain wool and cotton, much of it second hand what we had to reclaim from used garments and furnishings. But on occasions the local haberdashery would bring rolls of new printed cottons and pattern-weave wools they didn’t want no more, out of charity I suppose for us poor little orphan children, and the other little orphans we was making the clothes for.
You look puzzled? Sorry, I get carried away with me memories. The reason we was so busy sewing at The Castle was because the nuns had been asked by the grand ladies of the London Needlework Society to help them with their good works – which was making clothes for poor people. It made us feel special; we had nothing in the world except our skills, and we were using them to help other children like us.
The days when those haberdashers’ deliveries arrived was like birthdays and Christmases rolled into one: taking the wrappers off the rolls and discovering new colours and patterns, and breathing in that clean, summery smell of new fabric, like washing drying on a line – there’s nothing to match it, even now. When we was growing out of our clothes the nuns would let us have offcuts of patterned cotton to make ourselves new dresses and skirts, and Nora and me would always pick the brightest floral prints. We didn’t see too many flowers for real, so it brought a touch of springtime into our lives.
‘Nora? You knew each other even then?’
Oh yes, we go way back. She was my best friend. We was around the same age so far as we knew, and always shared a dormitory, called ourselves sisters – the family kind, not the nun kind – and swore we’d never be parted. Not that we looked like family by any stretch: she was blonde and by the time we was fourteen she towered above me at five feet six, with big feet she was always tripping over, and a laugh like a tidal wave which made anyone around her – even the nuns – break out into a smile. She had large hands, too, double the size of mine, but that didn’t stop her being a good needleworker. We was naughty little minxes but we got away with it ’cos we worked hard.
Like I say, we was happy because we knew no different, but we was also growing up – even though my chest was flat and my fanny still smooth as a baby’s bottom, Nora was getting breasts and hair down there, as well as under her arms, and both of us was starting to give the eye to the gardener’s lad and the baker’s delivery boy, whenever the nuns weren’t watching.
That day we was doing our needlework when this grand lady with a big hat and feathers on the top of her head comes with a gaggle of her lah-di-dah friends, like a royal visit it was, and she leans over what I am embroidering and says, ‘What fine stitching, my dear, where did you learn that?’
And I says back, ‘It’s daisy chain, Ma’am. Would you like to see how it works?’ And I finish the daisy with three more chain links spaced evenly round the circle like they are supposed to be, and quickly give it a stem and a leaf which doesn’t turn out too bad, even though my fingers are trembling and sweaty with being watched by such a grand person. She keeps silent till I’ve finished and then says in her voice full of plums and a bit foreign, ‘That is very clever, dear, very pretty. Keep up the good work’, and as she moves on to talk to another girl I breathe in the smell of her, like a garden full of roses, what I have never smelled before on a human being.
Afterwards I hears her asking Sister Mary about me and Nora, was we good girls and that sort of thing, but we soon forgot about her and that was it for a few months till my birthday – it was January 1911 when I turned fifteen – and me and Nora, whose birthday was just a few days before, gets a summons from Sister Beatrice, the head nun. This only usually happens when one of us has done something wicked like swearing ‘God’ too many times or falling asleep in prayers, so you can imagine the state that Nora and me are in as we go up the stairs to the long corridor with the red Persian runner and go to stand outside the oak door with those carvings that look like folds of fabric in each panel. I am so panicked that I feel like fainting, and I can tell that Nora is trying to stifle the laugh that always bubbles up when she’s nervous.
Sister calls us in and asks us to sit down on leather-seated chairs that are so high that my legs don’t reach the ground and I have to concentrate hard on not swinging them ’cos I know that annoys grown-ups more than anything else in the world.
She turns to me first. ‘Miss Romano? I think it is your birthday today?’ she asks, and I am so startled at being called ‘Miss’ that I can’t think of anything better to say than, ‘Yes Ma’am.’
‘Then God bless you, child, and let me wish you many happy returns of this day,’ she says, nearly smiling.
‘Thank you, Ma’am,’ I say, trying to ignore the way Nora’s body is shaking beside me.
‘Miss Featherstone?’ says Sister, and I know that if Nora opens her mouth the laugh will just burst out, so she just nods and keeps her head bent down but this doesn’t seem to bother Sister Beatrice, who just says, ‘I understand that you two are good friends, are you not?’ I nod on behalf of us both, and she goes on, ‘I hear very positive things about the two of you, especially about your needlework skills, and I have some very exciting news.’
She goes on to tell us that the grand lady who came a few months ago is a duchess and the patron of the Needlework Society and was visiting to inspect the work that the convent was doing for the poor children of the city. She was so impressed by the work Nora and me showed her that she is sending her housekeeper to interview us about going into service.
A duchess! Well, you can imagine how excited we are, but scared too as we haven’t a clue what to expect and our imaginations go into overtime. We was going to live in a beautiful mansion with a huge garden and sew clothes for very important people, and Nora is going to fall in love with one of the chauffeurs but I have my sights set a bit higher, a soldier in the Light Brigade in his red uniform perhaps, or a city gent in a bowler hat. Either way, both of us are going to have our own comfortable houses next door to each other with little gardens where we can grow flowers and good things to eat, and have lots of children who will play together, and we will live happily ever after.
There’s a pause. She clears her throat loudly.
Forgive me, Miss, don’t mind if I has a smoke?
‘Go ahead, that’s fine. Let’s have a short break.’
No, I’ll just light up and carry on, please, ’cos if I interrupt meself I’ll lose the thread.
A cigarette packet being opened, the click of a lighter, a long inward breath and a sigh of exhaled smoke. Then she clears her throat and starts again.
Not that there’s much chance of me forgetting that day, mind, when the duchess’s housekeeper is coming to visit. We was allowed a special bath and then got dressed in our very best printed cottons and Sister Mary helped us pin our hair up