The Forgotten Seamstress (11 page)

Months went by, and then a whole year. Miss G never returned to work, and the week I turned seventeen I was promoted to the position of chief needlewoman, which was a very big event in my life, let me tell you. I’d always been a nothing, but now I was a somebody, a
chief
somebody. But it made it even harder with Nora; she didn’t like the fact that I had been raised up over her and I’d have felt the same if the boot had been on the other foot. She was so distracted with her new friends that her work became shoddy and slapdash, and once or twice I had to pull her up, which went down like a lead balloon, and after that she spoke to me even less.

While all this was going on, I was very, very lonely. I even thought about running away. But what could I do outside? I’d end up a street walker, more than likely. And though you might doubt it from what I’ve told you, I wasn’t that kind of girl.

One day I was hunting in the sewing cupboard for a piece of bias binding in a particular colour when down the bottom, under a pile of uniform fabrics, I found a box of scraps. There was wools and cottons, satins and velvets, even silk brocades with little flower designs and silver threads running through them. Miss G must have kept them for some reason, but most of the scraps was so small I couldn’t think what they’d’ve been useful for. Then I remembered the quilt I’d started at The Castle, what got left behind. Looking through these beautiful strips and squares I got the notion that perhaps I could start a new quilt, to keep me hands and thoughts busy in the lonely times?

I was just about to stuff some of the fabrics into my pockets so’s I could get started on something, when I got an attack of the nerves.

‘What if someone notices?’ I thought to myself. ‘I could be accused of theft.’

But after a few days I got to thinking that by the time Miss G got back she’d never remember what was there, so I started taking a few scraps at a time, hidden under my uniform, back to the bedroom, and hiding them in the kit bag under my bed. All over that long winter I got a bit possessed by it, working on the design in every spare moment – it was a way of escaping my loneliness. Then I set to cutting out the fabric shapes, tacking them onto paper templates, ready for sewing them together in the right patterns.

By the time spring 1914 arrived I’d completed the central panel, an embroidered lover’s knot, a double row of pale lavender chain stitch in twelve-strand spun silk twist onto a square of beautiful cream silk damask made up of four smaller squares. I turned the square onto one point, cut eight more triangles of damask and sewed them together in pairs to create four larger triangles which would fill in the corners to complete a new square. I got it into my foolish head that by creating a symbol of my love for the prince I was keeping it alive for the future, and even dreamed, poor mug that I was, that we might one day sleep together beneath my quilt.

Nora had been stepping out with a footman called Charlie for about three months, and she was so brimming with happiness she couldn’t keep it to herself. At work, she talked about the lad all the time. He seemed nice enough even though he had an outbreak of spots on his face like a raisin pudding, and had to wear pan-cake when in uniform to avoid upsetting them upstairs.

I was ever so glad to have her friendship back, even though I now played second fiddle to Charlie. Being a footman he ate in the main servants’ hall, and heard a higher level of gossip than us lowly maids, which is how I learned that the prince was back in London to enjoy his first ‘season’. The only time I’d ever heard that phrase used before was about rutting dogs and Nora soon confirmed it was a similar thing for humans. ‘It’s when posh boys are introduced to posh girls and matched up for marriage,’ she told me, and it was bitter news to my ears, hearing about the endless round of balls and parties, and many tales of how the prince loved to dance, and the beautiful young ladies who flocked to his side.

The cracks in my heart were well and truly broken and then, at the end of July, when we heard that Britain had declared war with Germany, the rest of the world also seemed to be falling apart. Charlie talked about signing up to fight and Nora was desperate to stop him.

In November, quite out of the blue, I was on my own in the sewing room when Finch appeared at the door and ordered me to report to the prince’s chamber, immediately. Well, of course, I went into a spin, flapping around to make sure I had everything I might need in my ‘basket of necessaries’.

This was not the usual time – it was the middle of the afternoon – and as I stood outside his door pinching my cheeks and biting my lips to give them a little colour, my heart was like cannon fire in my chest and my nerves jangled so much I was afraid I might faint before I could step over the threshold. The only thing keeping me on my feet was sheer bloody-mindedness. I refused to have him open the door and find me passed out in a heap on the ground.

Nearly two years had gone by since we last met, but he never even batted an eyelid.

‘Dear Maria, my favourite seamstress,’ he shouted. ‘What a splendid sight. Come in, come in, I am so pleased to see you.’ He was handsomer even than before, less boyish and more manly. The fuzz round his chin had thickened into a bristly afternoon shadow.

As I tried to curtsey, my legs went to jelly.

‘What can I do for you, Your Majesty?’ I kept my eyes lowered, afraid to meet his. I knew that if I did, I would be lost again.

‘Drop the formality, please, little one.’ He took my hand and led me to the chaise. ‘I do have a small task for you, but for the moment, come and tell me what you have been doing with yourself.’

‘Not so very much, sir, as you know,’ I said, as primly as possible. ‘Apart from being promoted in my work, my life is very unexciting compared with that of a prince. We servants do not go to many parties and balls, as you do, sir.’

He heard the edge in my voice, I suppose, and mimicked a sad face. ‘Ah, my little one, you have been listening to gossip, have you not?’

I nodded, a little shamefaced now, for my cheek.

‘Then you must know that I am not the master of my own destiny. It is expected of me to attend these functions, but it does not mean that I enjoy them. The women – ah the women – they are very beautiful, but they are so
vacuous
.’ He paused while I wondered what this could mean. ‘They do
fawn
so. Yes, that’s the problem, because of who I am, they cling to me, simpering and giggling. It makes me want to run away to sea again, back with all my sailor mates. They couldn’t care a bugger who I am.’ His great guffaw got me giggling and broke the ice.

‘Don’t you see?’ He was suddenly serious again, turning my face to his and giving me both barrels of that gaze. ‘They are not real people like you, my pretty girl. Those society girls are like little actresses, being just what their mamas want them to be, so they can snare themselves a wealthy husband.’

For a moment I thought he might kiss me, but he gave a little sigh before letting go of my hand. ‘Alas, much as I would wish to, I cannot dally today. I have a rather urgent sewing task for you.’ He went to his closet and returned with three pairs of khaki trousers.

‘It’s the problem with short legs,’ he said, passing them to me. ‘Not that you care, my dearest, but it’s a matter of pride for us chaps and I could never admit it to the official tailor. All these need shortening, by two inches. It must be invisible, impossible to tell that any alteration has been made. Can you do that?’

‘Of course, sir.’ I tried to keep my voice business-like even though I was sick with disappointment inside. ‘That is a perfectly straightforward task. I will get onto it straight away. When do you need it by, sir?’

‘This evening, is that possible? After dinner? Ten o’clock, say?’

‘Consider it done, sir,’ I said, making hasty calculations in my head.

‘And will you deliver the work in person, please, as I would like to check that it is correct?’ Though his voice was formal, there was that little smile at the corner of his eyes that I recognised of old, and it raised my foolish hopes once again.

‘Indeed I will if that is your wish, sir.’ I bent my face to hide the blush burning my cheeks.

‘And we shall have a little talk like the old times, shall we?’ he said, with a wink. Two long years had passed without word and now he seemed to believe that we could fall into our old ways. No, I would remain cool and distant, I told myself, not allow any further intimacies which would only break my heart once more. Even so, I nearly skipped down the corridors on my way back downstairs.

When I entered the sewing room Nora gave me a long, fierce look, pointing at the trousers. ‘Whose are those?’

I said nothing and started hunting for my tape measure.

‘You’re flushed,’ she said. ‘Where have you been?’

Again I held my tongue, but of course she knew.

‘There’s only one person upstairs who’s going off to war.’ She glared at me. ‘It’s
him
, isn’t it?’

Then I realised: of course, these were
army
trousers. Why hadn’t I made the connection? The panic rose in my throat; he was going off to fight.

‘For goodness sake, don’t let it happen again,’ she snapped.

‘Let
what
happen again?’ I asked, trying to stop myself blushing.

‘You bloody well know what. Let
me
take the bloody trousers back.’ She made a grab for them, trying to pull them from my hands.

‘No, Nora, he asked for
me
. I have to go.’ I hung onto the trousers for grim death. What would he think if Nora turned up instead of me? It would be an unforgiveable snub, and he would never ask for me again.

‘Then be it on your own head. Don’t expect my sympathy ever again, you stupid, stupid girl,’ Nora shouted into my face, before stomping out and slamming the door.

At ten o’clock sharp I knocked on his door and even before I could show him my careful stitching on the hems, which was so much neater than the army tailor’s coarse work, he pulled me to him and kissed me, long and hard. All my good intentions to resist him evaporated in an instant. He’d been practising on his beautiful women, I could tell, but I wasn’t complaining. I was like putty in his hands; the kissing was delicious and I wanted it never to stop.

I was a reckless, foolish girl to let it happen again, but I can’t say I regret it. I won’t go into details to save your blushes, dearie, but all I can say is I know quite well why that Wallis woman wouldn’t let him go, why she fought so hard for him and made him give up the crown. By golly, he’d learned a trick or two since those early trysts of ours.

She breaks into an asthmatic giggle, and has to clear her throat before continuing.

But then of course, off he went, to war. He told me they wouldn’t let him fight in the trenches but he was going to do all he could to get to the front line anyway, and he promised to write every day. What a fool I was, to believe it. Every day passed with me barely able to breathe as Mrs Hardy or one of her minions handed around the post to us servants after breakfast and, of course, nothing arrived for me.

But one day, after six long weeks, she finally handed me a letter and I blushed scarlet as everyone around the table turned their faces towards me, hoping for a clue. Not bloody likely. I rushed away to the toilets and opened it in there, heart pounding, and sure enough it was from him, though his handwriting was heavily disguised.

It was short and gave little away, but it did say that he thought of me every night and called me ‘my love’ – it was enough to keep up my hopes and dreams for many a month. My quilt panel was complete, and I finished a beautiful border of pieced lozenge-shaped hexagons, in silks and satins, that would hold the secret of my love, hidden for ever.

But there was no further word from him and slowly, day by day, crack by crack, piece by piece, my heart was broken all over again. Nora’s beau Charlie came home for leave at Christmas and told such tales about what life was like in the trenches as you would struggle to believe. I feared for my love but took comfort in the thought that they would surely look after the future King of England. As the war ground on into its third year, my despair reached rock bottom.

Then, around Christmas 1917, the talk was that the prince would be returning to England in the New Year for a tour of defence plants, and might be in London for a few days. It was a bitter cold night in February, the night Nora received the news about Charlie. He’d been injured weeks ago at Cambrai, they said, but had finally succumbed. She was inconsolable, taking to her bed and refusing to eat or drink, weeping fit to burst for hours on end, till I worried for her health.

When the knock came I thought it would be one of her housemaid friends or even Mrs Hardy the housekeeper, coming to check how she was, so I was very surprised to see Finch, standing stiffly outside the door. ‘His Majesty wishes to see you, Miss Romano,’ he said through gritted teeth.

I was reluctant to leave Nora, but knew I could not refuse the prince.

She lights a cigarette and sighs deeply.

Do excuse me, dearie, but the memory makes me feel a bit wobbly. I’ve sometimes thought to myself, if only I’d never gone, stayed to comfort Nora like a best friend should have done, my life would have been so different. But I was young and stupid, and of course I went. I knew what would happen, and that it was foolish, but I didn’t care.

Another deep sigh.

I will never forget that night. When I first sat down, he placed a small box into my hands and told me to open it.

‘It’s a gift for you,’ he said, with that melting look in his eyes.

My hands were shaking as I opened the box, and inside was a small round flat bottle, the shape of a pocket watch, with a medallion label with the figure 4711 and some words in a language I did not understand.

‘It’s a French perfume, called
eau de cologne
, smells a bit like lavender. Dab a little behind each ear – go on.’ This idea was so unfamiliar to me that he took it from my hands, unscrewed the little gold lid and dabbed it onto his fingers, then onto my neck. Then he brought his face close to mine, and drew in a long breath.