There was a laugh – not Gilda’s high tinkle, but lower and mellifluous. Violet looked up and found herself staring into two deep brown pools. Louisa Pesel’s gaze was direct and focused, despite the clamour in the room and Mrs Biggins hovering at her elbow. She looked at Violet as if she were the only person here who mattered.
“What part of Winchester history is this?” Violet asked. “I’ve not lived here long, and this is unfamiliar.”
“You must look further afield, to the Bible.”
“The Tree of Life?” Violet guessed. Like everyone else here, already she wanted to please Miss Pesel.
The older woman beamed. “Yes. The other historic medallions will be directly connected to Winchester, but I thought the first might be more universal. Luckily Dean Selwyn agreed with me, though I only told him after the medallion was half-done.” She chuckled. “This one and another will be for the vergers’ seats on either side of the central aisle when you enter the choir. They are just that bit longer than the rest, because the seats are wider. Perhaps vergers are wider than the rest of us!”
“Miss Pesel, this is Miss Speedwell, our newest recruit,” Mrs Biggins interjected. “Though it is rather late in the day for her to start.”
“It is never too late,” Miss Pesel rejoined. “We have hundreds of cushions and kneelers to make. We shall be stitching for years, and need to put every possible hand to the pump. I see Mrs Biggins has got you sorting wool. That’s all well and good, but if you are to start embroidering over the summer break, you must learn your stitches now. I shall teach you myself. Come and sit.” She led the way to two spaces that had miraculously opened up at the table without her having to ask. “Miss Hill, would you kindly fetch a square of canvas and a model for Miss Speedwell? No need for a frame just yet.”
Gilda grinned at Violet as she hurried away, her eyes disappearing into slits, her teeth bright and horsey.
“Now, Miss Speedwell, have you ever done any embroidery?” Miss Pesel tilted her head like a bird. “No cross-stitch at school?”
“I don’t—” Violet stopped. She could feel a dim memory emerging, of a limp bit of cloth gone grey with handling, scattered with crosses that made up a primitive house, a garland of flowers, the alphabet, and a verse. “‘Lord, give me wisdom to direct my ways …’” she murmured.
“‘… I beg not riches, nor yet length of days’,” Miss Pesel finished. “Quite an old-fashioned sampler. Very popular. Who taught you?”
“My mother. She still misses Queen Victoria.”
Miss Pesel laughed.
“My sampler was not very good,” Violet added.
“Well, we shall have to teach you better. We’ll start with the main stitches we use for the kneelers and cushions: cross, long-armed cross, tent, rice, upright Gobelin, and eyelets. Though we are adding as we go, for variety. I am determined that we avoid the domestic look of a woodland scene in green and yellow and brown cross-stitch on a chair seat.”
Violet smiled: Miss Pesel had accurately described the dining room chairs in use in Mrs Speedwell’s house.
Gilda returned with a square of brown canvas and a similar piece with several different patches of stitching done in blue and yellow.
“Italian hemp,” Miss Pesel explained as she handed the square to Violet. “And this is a tapestry needle, with a big eye and a blunt end.” She held it out, along with a strand of mid-blue wool. “Let’s see you thread it … Good, you remember that. This morning I’ll teach you tent, Gobelin, cross, and long-armed cross.” She tapped at each stitch on the model. “This afternoon, rice and eyelets. If all goes well you may have finished your own model of stitches by the end of the day!”
Violet opened her mouth to protest that she’d only taken the morning off from work, but then thought the better of it. Who would even notice or care that she was gone? O and Mo? Mr Waterman? She could make up her work easily enough. And if Mr Waterman complained, she could get Mrs Biggins to scare him.
“Now, some rules,” Miss Pesel continued. “Never use a sharp needle as it will fray the canvas; only a blunt one. Don’t leave knots, they will come undone or make a bump; tie one, stitch over it, then cut the knot – I’ll show you. Make your stitches close – you are covering every bit of the canvas, so that it is entirely filled in and none of the canvas weave shows. Any gaps between stitches will make the cushion or kneeler weak and it will not last. These cushions and kneelers will be used every day – sometimes two or three times a day – for at least a hundred years, we hope. That is many thousands of times they will be sat on or knelt on. They must be robust to withstand such use for that long.
“Finally, don’t forget the back of the canvas. You want the reverse to look almost as neat as the front. You will make mistakes that you can correct back there, and no one will be the wiser. But if it’s a dismal tangle at the back, it can affect the front; for instance, you may catch loose threads with your needle and pull them through. A neat back means you’ve worked a neat front.”
Violet recalled the back of her childhood sampler, tangled with wool, the front a field of irregular crosses, her mother’s despair.
“Think of your work rather like the services at the Cathedral,” Louisa Pesel added. “You always see an orderly show of pageantry out in the presbytery or the choir, with the processions and the prayers and hymns and the sermon all beautifully choreographed, mostly thanks to the vergers who run it all, and keep things tidy and organised in the offices away from the public eye as well, so that the public show is smooth and seamless.”
Violet nodded.
“All right, let’s start with the tent stitch, which you will be using a great deal.” Miss Pesel tapped a patch of yellow stitches beading up and down the model. “It is strong, especially done on the diagonal, and fills gaps beautifully.”
Violet wrestled with handling the unfamiliar needle and wool and canvas. Miss Pesel was patient, but Violet was clumsy and uncertain, and panicked whenever she got to the end of a row and had to start back up the other way.
“One stitch on the diagonal, then two squares down,” Miss Pesel repeated several times. “Now going back up the row it’s one diagonal and two across. Vertical going down the row, horizontal going up. That’s right!” She clapped. “You’ve got it.”
Violet felt stupidly proud.
Miss Pesel left her to practise several rows of tent while she went to help others. The backlog of broderers impatient to see her was a pressure Miss Pesel did not seem to feel, and no one dared to complain to her, but they frowned at Violet over the teacher’s shoulder.
She checked back after twenty minutes. “Very good,” she said, studying Violet’s rows. “You have learned where the needle must go. Now unpick it all and start again.”
“What? Why?” Violet bleated. She’d thought she was doing well.
“The tension in each stitch must be the same or it will look uneven and unsightly. Don’t despair, Miss Speedwell,” she added, taking in Violet’s rueful expression. “I can guarantee that every woman in this room has done her share of unpicking. No one manages it straight off. Now, let’s sort out what you’re doing at the ends of the rows. Then I’ll teach you upright Gobelin. That’s rather like tent but more straightforward.”
It was more straightforward and easy to master, so that before lunch Miss Pesel was also able to show her cross-stitch and long-armed cross. “I’m pleased with your progress,” she declared as she handed back Violet’s canvas. “This afternoon we’ll go over rice and eyelets, and then you’ll be ready. We start again at half past two.”
Violet found herself lapping up the praise like a child.