The Gown(12)

“Yes. Almost,” came the muffled reply.

“Sit up now, or else you’ll fall asleep again. Don’t forget to take the laundry to Mrs. Cole.”

“I won’t. What are you thinking for supper?”

“We’ve a few potatoes. Let’s make a cottage pie from the leftover stew.”

“Right, then. Have a good day.”

“You too. Oh—I forgot to tell you. The pipes are frozen again.”

“Wonderful. That really does make me want to get out of bed.”

“Sorry. I’m sure they’ll thaw once the sun is up. Right—I’d best be off.”

She hurried out the door, not bothering to pack her dinner, as it was easier, and cheaper, to eat at the canteen in the basement at work. A biting sort of sleet had begun to fall, and she had no umbrella, hers having collapsed in tatters the week before. By the time she reached the station, her wool hat, already on its last legs, was a sodden and shapeless ruin.

The trains were running, at least, and she was even able to get a seat in her usual carriage. A man across from her was reading the Daily Mail, his attention fixed on the football results. She could see the front page from where she sat, and the headlines were a variation on a familiar theme: more bad weather expected, food shortages increasing, dire predictions of economic collapse, further unrest in India.

At Mile End she switched to the Central line, but two trains came and went before she could squeeze on. Nine stops to go, penned in on every side, the smell of damp wool and unwashed bodies almost unendurable. That’s what happened when the soap ration was slashed to nearly nothing.

She all but leaped from the carriage when it pulled into Bond Street station. Up the steps she ran—the escalator was still under repair, or perhaps they simply didn’t want to waste the electricity on running the thing—and out into the street, head down against the needling rain, her feet leading her to Hartnell’s as surely as they’d send her home come evening.

The grand entrance on Bruton Street was reserved for Mr. Hartnell, his clients, and senior staff such as Mademoiselle Davide. Everyone else came and went through the mews entrance on Bruton Place, chanting a string of hellos and good mornings to one another as they streamed up the stairs to the cloakrooms.

Ann hung up her coat and scarf and set her wretched excuse for a hat on one of the radiators, though she held out little hope of its drying. Then down a flight of stairs and along a warren of corridors to her second home, the main embroidery workroom, where she’d spent nearly every weekday of the past eleven years. She knew every inch of it by heart.

The heavy fire door and the short run of steps with its rickety handrail. The rows of embroidery frames, their plain wooden stretchers filled with panes of fabric. The bank of windows that stretched to the ceiling, and the hanging electric lights, their cords bunched and tied so they shone just so. The scores of drawings and samples and photographs pinned to the whitewashed walls, with one entire section given over to the women of the royal family and their Hartnell gowns. The low tables along the perimeter of the workroom, their tops messily shingled with trays of beads and sequins, boxes of buttons, and skeins of embroidery silk.

Every blue moon Miss Duley would ask the assistants and juniors to sort everything out, but the return to order never lasted more than a week or two. Soon enough they’d be onto the next big push—a state dinner, a set of theater costumes, an export order for American clients—and the workroom would revert to its usual state of artfully disordered chaos.

It didn’t bother Ann. She knew where to find whatever she needed, and it wasn’t as if Mr. Hartnell’s own office was shipshape—far from it. The few times Ann had been to that part of the premises, usually to deliver a finished sample, his desk had been awash in books, correspondence, and art supplies, with one end entirely given over to bolts of fabric and lace so fine and precious that a single yard easily cost more than she earned in a year.

A gaggle of the younger girls burst through the door and clattered down the steps, their excited voices shattering the comfortable silence.

“Look, Ann! Look!” cried Ruthie. “Go on, Doris, show her.”

“Yes, show her,” squealed Ethel. “Just stick out your hand so she can see.”

Ann moved closer, still unsure as to why they were so excited. “I don’t—”

“Don’t you see? Doris got engaged!”

“That’s wonderful news,” Ann said. “And your ring is very pretty,” she added, though she’d only caught a glimpse of it before everyone else had crowded round.

“He asked me yesterday, right after Sunday lunch with my mum and dad. I’d been helping with the washing up, and in he came and got down on one knee. I still had soapsuds all over my hands!”

“That’s ever so romantic,” cooed Ruthie. “What did your mum say?”

“She had a good cry, of course. And Dad was happy, too. He liked that Joe had asked his permission first. That’s what they were doing when me and Mum were in the kitchen.”

“When are you thinking? A summer wedding?” someone asked.

“I think so. Joe’s mum is all on her own, so she’s happy to have us stay with her.”

“Will you be leaving work, then?” Ann asked, though she already knew the answer.

“Not until after the wedding. Joe wants to start a family straightaway, so there isn’t much point in staying on.”