The Gown(45)

“That’s all right. If I’d been desperate for a cuppa I’m sure I’d have noticed.” Ann gestured to the array of satin shapes. “What do you think? I took account of the grain as I was cutting them out.”

“Well done. Once you’ve attached them to the backing, we’ll go over the placement of the beadwork. Miriam—I was just saying to Ann that you may make up your missed break with extra time at dinner.”

“I do not mind. I was happy at my work.”

“Then off to your dinners you go, and don’t rush back,” Miss Duley commanded smilingly.

Seated at her usual table in the canteen, with her usual fare of a cheese and salad sandwich failing to tempt her, Ann let the others talk over and around her. It was important to eat and drink and keep up her strength, but all she wanted at that moment was to return to her frame and begin to attach the appliqués.

“Ooh,” Ruthie said as they were finishing, “you never did say how it went. Yes, Ann, I’m talking to you.”

“How what went?”

“Your date with that dishy captain. Was he nice?”

“Oh, that. I didn’t go.”

A chorus of disappointed groans swept around the table.

“Why ever not?”

“And you never said a thing?”

“But you said you’d ring him up. I heard you tell him.”

She had wanted to go, very much, but when she’d rung up the number on his card a sleepy voice had answered. A woman’s voice.

“May I speak with Captain Thickett-Milne?” she’d asked once the worst of her surprise had worn off.

“Wrong number.”

“I beg your pardon,” she had said, but the woman had already hung up.

Ann had looked at the card, memorized the number, and dialed again with painstaking care.

“Hello? May I speak with—”

The same peevish voice had replied. “Oh, bugger off. I told you already—you’ve the wrong number.”

She’d been too cowed to try again.

“I wasn’t feeling well,” she now fibbed.

“Well, now that you’re feeling better you should call him back,” Ruthie advised. “Otherwise someone else will snap him right up.”

Ruthie was a sweet girl, but Ann couldn’t bear to think about it anymore. He was probably married, or involved with someone, and that was the woman who had answered the phone. It had been stupid of her even to try.

“I’m off back to work,” she told the table. “Are you ready?” she asked Miriam, and they were sitting at their frame before anyone else had returned from dinner. “So much for our extra quarter hour. But since we’re here—which one would you like to do?”

“The fleurs d’étoile? The star flowers? But only if you—”

“No, that’s fine. I think I’ll start on the larger of the roses. But first let’s move the frame into the corner. The light is much better there.”

Miriam had set basting stitches in blue to divide the backing into six equal squares, and once Ann had washed her hands at the sink in the corner, set up her little side table with her things, and adjusted her chair just so, she cast an eagle eye over the tulle. Its grain was perfectly straight, without the slightest ripple or bump, and the fabric was as tight as a new drum.

“You’ve done a beautiful job on the stretching,” she told her friend.

“Thank you. At Maison Rébé we were permitted no more than thirty minutes to set up our frames, but I allowed myself rather more time today. I did not wish the tulle to warp when I laced up the short sides of the frame.”

With Mr. Hartnell’s sketch for reference, Ann set the first of the petals on the tulle. She took a curved needle from her pincushion, the same as a surgeon might use, ran it through a scrap of chamois cloth a few times to remove any trace of tarnish, and threaded it with a double strand of silk floss so fine it was almost transparent.

Ann turned under the edge of the satin by the tiniest amount, held it in place with the index finger of her left hand, and then, bringing the needle from beneath the tulle, she caught the fabric just below the edge of the petal and pulled the thread taut.

One stitch completed.

She worked slowly, methodically, taking a half hour or more to affix each petal to the tulle. Inches away, Miriam was doing the same with the first of her star-flower shapes, and while they often liked to talk as they worked, today they were silent.

They continued on in this fashion all afternoon, and when they set down their needles at five o’clock they had attached all but a few of the appliqué pieces. Miss Duley had come by every hour or so, invariably pronouncing herself pleased with their work, and near the end of the afternoon had reminded them, more than once, to cover their work with a clean length of cambric before they left.

Supper that night had been the simplest thing Ann could devise: sardines on toast, which Miriam ate with gusto, and some tiny greengage plums that Mr. Booth had brought by. The weather was still warm and fair at eight o’clock, and the sunset promised to be a pretty one, so she and Miriam carried the kitchen chairs into the back and drank their tea and listened to the agreeable noises of children playing in the half-wild lane that ran along the end of the gardens.

“I do wonder how we’ll get it all done on time,” she said after a while. “The wedding is on November twentieth, but the fabric won’t be ready for another week at least, if not longer. That leaves only six weeks, but really it’s more like four. We can’t expect the girls in the sewing room to make up the gown overnight. And did you see how many flowers are on the gown and train? Hundreds and hundreds. It took us the entire day just to make a start on a handful of them.”