‘Oh, I don’t mind, Dolly. Anytime I can help, just let me know …’
Poppy was taken to Aunt Phoebe’s seamstress, Mrs Gadd, and measured. Together they chose material and flipped through patterns for everyday dresses, evening dresses, walking out dresses, skirts, blouses, petticoats, chemises, and frilly drawers. Poppy’s choice was frequently tempered and guided by Aunt Phoebe. Poppy was to return a week later for her first fitting. The next day, Tuesday, Aunt Phoebe had Clay drive them to town after Poppy’s lessons to buy mittens, day gloves, evening gloves, decent stockings, a purse, several bonnets, scarves, another cloak, a crinoline, another pair of dainty boots, and two new nightgowns, and to be measured for a corset.
As Poppy’s first week progressed, she had more lessons in reading, writing, elocution and deportment. On her second Sunday, she was taken to church in the carriage, along with Esther and Dolly, who sat in a pew at the rear of St Thomas’s church. Although the relatively new St John’s was nearer, Aunt Phoebe had always attended St Thomas’s. Poppy’s second week subsequently included an introduction to the scriptures, learning the Lord’s Prayer by heart, and Aunt Phoebe presented her with a map of the British Isles to pore over. First Poppy looked for Dudley, then Edinburgh, and thought about Robert Crawford and his two-wheeler. She found Mickleton, where her father had met with his death, but the map was not sufficiently up to date to show the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway line, although the Great Western from London to Bristol was shown, as was the London and Birmingham.
Poppy went alone to Mrs Gadd, the seamstress, for her first fitting.
‘Hold your arms up, young Poppy,’ Mrs Gadd said, somehow magically since she was holding a row of pins between her lips. ‘I just want to see if the bodice rides up.’
The bodice did not ride up appreciably because it was tight, as was the fashion, but Mrs Gadd found some material to pinch together and inserted a pin.
‘My word, you’ve got a lovely little figure, Poppy.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Gadd.’
‘You remind me o’ me eldest daughter. She’s got a figure like you, you know. She’s had three kids an’ all, but she ain’t lost her figure. Gets it from her father’s side, I reckon. His mother was like a whippet. Whippets run in that family. She certainly don’t get it from me.’ Mrs Gadd laughed self-deprecatingly. ‘Look at the size o’ me. I’m like a Netherton bonk ’oss. But not our Ruth.’
Poppy smiled indulgently, twisting one way then the other while the seamstress made her adjustments.
‘How old am yer, Poppy?’
‘Sixteen. I’ll be seventeen next April.’
‘Seventeen? Phew! What I wouldn’t give to be seventeen again and know what I know now … Stand up straight a bit while I just look at the hem …’ Mrs Gadd got down on her knees and fiddled with the hem, sticking pins in here and there. ‘That other dress …’ She nodded in its direction as she stood up again. ‘The pale blue satin one … You’ll fetch the ducks off the water wearing that. By God you will. Take a tip from me … You’m a young madam yet, and you’ll have a fair few handsome young bucks offering theirselves. Keep ’em dangling, that’s my advice. It makes ’em all the more interested.’
Poppy smiled, uncertain how to respond.
‘But never stop single,’ Mrs Gadd went on. ‘I don’t hold wi’ women stopping single. They get funny ideas with ne’er a husband around ’em to drain all the softness out o’ their heads. I got an aunt what never wed, and she took it into her head as she was gunna be an invalid. Well, she’d got some new complaint every week, and was drinking laudanum by the bucketful. Sent her yampy, it did. There’s ne’er a husband as would’ve stood for such softness.’ Mrs Gadd stood back to admire her work and wiped a bead of sweat off her brow with the back of her hand. ‘That one should be all right. Now let’s have a look at that blue satin frock … eh? Change into it, my flower.’
Poppy released herself from the day dress and slipped on the evening dress. Mrs Gadd rearranged the fall of the skirt and the set of the bodice.
‘Course, there’ll be no chemise under this when you wear it, eh?’ The seamstress winked at Poppy. ‘Bare shoulders and arms, eh? And a tempting glimpse o’ cleavage. That’s what gets the pulses racing.’
Poppy smiled demurely.
‘Turn around, my dear.’ Mrs Gadd fastened the tiny buttons at the back of the bodice. ‘Seen anythin’ o’ them Crawford lads?’
‘No,’ Poppy replied.
‘The middle one – Robert. I heard as he’s gone off to Brazil.’
‘Brazil?’ Poppy turned round sharply and risked being stuck by a pin. ‘Where’s Brazil?’
‘Where’s Brazil? You mean you don’t know? My dear, Brazil’s on the other side o’ the world. A savage, ungodly place, I shouldn’t wonder, with neither church nor chapel.’
‘Where’s Brazil, Aunt Phoebe?’ Poppy asked when she returned to Cawneybank House. ‘Mrs Gadd’s heard that Robert’s gone to Brazil to work.’
‘I didn’t know he was going to Brazil. Goodness, it’s in South America. A long way off.’
‘Can you show me where it is?’
They trooped to the library. Aunt Phoebe went straight to the globe on top of the chest of drawers and turned it on its axis.
‘There. That’s Brazil. That lilac bit. It doesn’t look much there, but it’s a huge country.’
‘And wild?’
‘Oh, yes, Poppy. Very wild.’
‘How big is it?’
‘Well, just compare it to Great Britain … There’s Great Britain …’
‘Yes, it’s much bigger. I hope he’ll be safe there, if it’s so wild.’
‘Oh, so do I,’ Aunt Phoebe agreed.
The months passed. Winter, along with its attendant snow and icicles, came and went. Poppy had never known anything like Christmas in the way that it was celebrated at Cawneybank House. Many of Aunt Phoebe’s friends visited them, bringing gifts that delighted Poppy. Aunt Phoebe was increasingly proud of her young companion and the way she was responding to her coaching. March blew in like the lion it was always expected to emulate but, by the end of that month, the winds had died, the chill had receded and April crept quietly in. The warmer rains encouraged new buds in the garden, fresh green leaves on the trees, and the occasional break in the clouds promised summer just around the corner.
In her improved situation, Poppy had not forgotten Minnie. Indeed, she made an effort to visit her most weeks if she got the chance. The stark contrast between life at Cawneybank House and the back-to-back in Gatehouse Fold became ever clearer the more she visited her friend. The first Friday in April Poppy tapped on Minnie’s door. It had been a month since last they had met. She waited in the drizzle, feeling conspicuously well dressed in a new dress, new cloak and bonnet. She tapped again, harder, as a middle-aged man peered at her from The Hare and Hounds on the corner and scowled at her, as if in envy of her obvious well-being. Poppy heard the screech of an upstairs sash and looked up to see Minnie thrust her tousled head out, peering down apprehensively.
‘Poppy!’ Minnie’s face lit up when she saw her friend. ‘I’m glad it’s you. I thought you was that wench what started to come round trying to get me on the straight and narrow. I’ll be right down to let yer in.’
Presently, the door opened and Minnie stood aside. ‘Come in out the