A Single Thread

“You’re here! After the broderers’ service I wondered if you might come along to a meeting.” Gilda Hill had arrived, and hurried over to her. She wore a floral red and white dress with a V-neck that mirrored her triangular face. Her slash of bright red lipstick made Violet aware of her own chewed lips.

“Hello.” Violet felt almost shy as she held out her hand. “I’m Violet Speedwell.”

Gilda pumped her hand. “Gilda Hill, remember? We’ll have such fun together. Now, don’t tell me Biggins has put you on cupboard duty! And with Mabel, I expect. Is she having you sort wool? It’s best if you hold it in the natural light. That’s why Mabel was sorting it on the sill. Didn’t she say? Honestly, she’s hopeless! And her embroidery! I shouldn’t point fingers, as mine’s nothing special. Let’s just say there’s a reason Mabel gets assigned to the cupboard so often. Did she or Mrs Biggins explain the blues? No? You’d best have a look at what I’m working on; then you’ll understand better.” From a bag at her feet she pulled out a rectangular frame with canvas stretched across it. “I’m making a kneeler for the presbytery. Nothing fancy – not like the choir cushions.”

“What different things are being made?” Violet interjected, already exhausted by her new friend’s patter.

“Biggins didn’t tell you? Of course not – she’ll never tell you anything so practical, she’ll just assume you know it. The first thing we began working on was the kneelers for the chairs near the altar in the presbytery, like this.” Gilda patted the embroidered rectangle. “There are to be hundreds of them eventually. These are all variations on a theme – a sort of mediaeval-style knot in the centre, circular, with flowers or geometrical shapes in them, set on a background patterned in blue with crosshatching or zigzags. Miss Pesel says we are always to use at least three shades of blue for the background, to give it texture. Those are the blues you’re sorting – four there, so when making a kneeler you choose three of the four. Then there are borders, made up of red or brown and cream or yellow squares or rectangles, and the corners have little motifs. They’re not too difficult to make, and there’s a surprising amount of variety in stitch and tone, so that they feel individual but are harmonious when all together. Miss Pesel is a genius designer.”

Violet nodded, wondering if she would get to meet the genius.

“Then there are two types of cushions – stall seat cushions, which are smaller ones for the seats along the back of the choir; and bench cushions, which will be much longer. The bench cushions and some of the seat cushions will have a series of medallions in the centres that Miss Sybil Blunt is designing. She is a friend of Miss Pesel’s – she just does the designs, so you won’t see her much at these meetings. The medallions are to be scenes from English history, with a Winchester twist. So there will be kings who have ruled here or are buried here or have connections here, like Alfred and Canute and Richard the Lionheart, and one of King Arthur. And there will be famous Winchester bishops like Wykeham and Beaufort and Wodeloke.”

“Are there any women?”

“Wives. Emma and Mary Tudor. In terms of embroidery style, the history medallions will be a mix of large stitches and petit-point using finer wool and silk, and which require more skill. Only the more experienced broderers will work on them. The rest of us will fill in the backgrounds and borders. Miss Pesel has done the top of one of the history cushions to show us what we’ll be aiming to make. Would you like to see it?”

Violet nodded.

“Biggins will have stored it in the cupboard in the hall, I expect. You go back to your sorting and I’ll fetch it.” She pulled out two hanks of blue from the bundle. “Here’s your third and fourth blues.”

Violet stared. “They look the same to me.”

Gilda laughed. “Once you’ve worked with them for months you become intimate with each shade.” She winked as she hurried away.

Violet studied the wool, straining to distinguish between the different tones of blue. She closed her eyes for a moment, and thought about a drawing class she had taken several years before in Southampton. She had gone with a friend, who married the next year and disappeared into that life, keen not to be reminded by Violet of her previous surplus status. As they scraped their pencils over rough drawing paper, their teacher – a genial man who’d lost an arm in the War (“Not the drawing arm, mind – thank God for His small mercies”) – told them to be like soldiers and close the mind while opening the eyes.

It had made Violet wonder if Laurence had done that – followed orders and stopped thinking on the battlefield. There was no information about how he died, no account from his commanding officer or fellow soldiers, no small details (“He made the men smile with his imitations of the Kaiser”) or strong adjectives or adverbs (“Lieutenant Furniss fought bravely alongside his comrades and played a major role in defending the territory gained”). Perhaps the officer had written too many of those letters that day and had run dry of uplifting phrases and superlatives. Or maybe no one had seen what happened to Laurence Furniss: he was one of hundreds of British soldiers who died at Passchendaele on the 1st of August 1917. Presumably he had done nothing out of the ordinary; dying that day wasn’t special. Although no one said, Violet heard afterwards about the terrible mud there, and wondered if he had simply got stuck in it and become an easy target.

One evening at the drawing class the regular teacher was absent and a woman took his place for the evening. Her style was very different: while she set up the usual still-lifes of fruit and bottles and glasses, she had them draw quickly, then move around the room to another easel and draw quickly again, and again, then go back to their original easel and spend an hour on the drawing. Violet was not sure what she was meant to learn – that things looked different from different angles, she supposed. It made her want to go outside and smoke.

The new teacher prowled behind them, stopping to peer at their drawings and make comments – few of them complimentary. Violet tried to block the sound of her voice, retreating deep inside her thoughts. She heard her name being called from a distance, but only when a hand was waved in front of her barely-begun drawing did she listen.

“Miss Speedwell, what are you thinking of?”

“My brother,” she replied, surprised into honesty. George had had some words attached: “noble effort”, “stalwart in the face of enemy fire”, “died bravely defending the most sacred values of this country”. She could repeat these phrases because her mother had done so often over the years, sucking every drop of comfort from them until they were dry and meaningless as sticks.

“Stop thinking about him,” the teacher commanded. “He is not here.” She gestured at the still-life. “You should be thinking of nothing more than where the highlight is on the apple, or how to achieve the glassiness of the bottle. Your entire focus should be on what you are looking at – let the rest drain away. It will make for a better drawing – and it will be a relief to you too, to remain in the moment, not to dwell.” With these last words she gave Violet permission to set George and Laurence aside for the evening. She made her best drawing that night, and never felt the need to go back again.

Now, with the blue wools to sort, she tried to bring back that feeling of extraneous thoughts draining away to leave her vision clear. It was remarkable how much was knocking about inside her brain: curiosity about what Gilda was going to show her; anxiety that she would not be able to wield a needle well enough to embroider anything for the Cathedral; rage at Mrs Biggins for taking such satisfaction in belittling the workers; shyness at trying to find a place amongst all of these women who already knew what they were doing; concern that no one would even notice she was missing from work that morning; calculation about what she could have for supper that didn’t involve sardines, beans, or sprats, as she was so sick of them. There were probably more thoughts in there, but Violet cleared out most of her mind, looked at the wool again, and immediately recognised that one of the blues had a tinge of green in it, making it sea-like and murky, like her eyes, which she had always wished were a cleaner blue – like the light blue hank she picked out and dropped into its box. Light blue, mid-royal with a hint of grey, green-blue, and dark blue. Within a couple of minutes she’d sorted them, so that when Gilda came back, she had finished.

“Here we are,” Gilda said, setting down a rectangular piece of canvas embroidery about thirteen by thirty inches. In the central medallion were small, careful petit-point stitches done in subtle shades of brown and cream, depicting a tree, with two blue and tan peacocks standing in its branches, pecking at bunches of dangling grapes while a goat and a deer grazed below. The peacock feathers were intricately rendered, and the grapes expertly shaded with just a few dots of colour. Surrounding the medallion was bolder, cruder embroidery in a complicated pattern of bold stitches that created blue Celtic knots and red flowers on a background of yellow.

“This is exquisite,” Violet declared, tracing the peacock with a finger. “So beautifully done I can’t imagine anyone will actually sit on it when it’s in use.”

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.

Chapter 5

AS THE BRODERERS GATHERED together their bits and pieces to go to lunch – some leaving for good, others going out to eat with the intention to return – Violet wondered for a moment what to do. She should go back to the office and ask Mr Waterman if she could take the afternoon off as well. Then Gilda was at her elbow. “Shall we eat on the Outer Close?” she suggested, as if they had been friends for years. “There’s a yew tree by Thetcher I like to sit under when it’s warm. Lets you see the comings and goings of the Cathedral, which is no end of entertainment.”

“Thetcher?”

“You don’t know? You’re in for a treat!” Gilda took her arm and began to lead her out. Violet was tempted to pull away: there was something in Gilda’s thin face, her prominent teeth, and the fine wrinkles around her eyes that telegraphed … not desperation, exactly, but an overpowering insistence.

“I’m meant to be back at work this afternoon,” she said as they descended the stairs. “I hadn’t realised I would be expected for the whole day. Mrs Biggins only mentioned the morning.”

Gilda grimaced. “Old Biggins probably didn’t want you for the day. Honestly, she acts as if a new volunteer is a burden God has placed at her feet, when actually we’re desperate for more broderers. Silly woman should be thanking you! Luckily you have Miss Pesel’s blessing. Anyway, couldn’t you take the afternoon off? Is your supervisor understanding? Where do you work?”

“Southern Counties Insurance.”

Gilda stopped in the middle of the Inner Close, the Cathedral looming behind her. A group of young scholars from Winchester College in their gowns and boaters parted in streams around them, clattering across the cobblestones on their way back to classes. “I suppose you know Olive Sanders,” she said, looking as if she had bitten into an anticipated apple and found it mushy.

“Yes, we’re both typists. We share an office.”

“Poor you! Oh, sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.” Gilda didn’t look sorry. “But really,” she added as they began walking again, “I can’t imagine being in a confined space with her. How do you cope?”

Violet thought of all the silly conversations she’d overheard between O and Mo, the shrieks, the braying laughter over nothing, the casual condescension, the over-sweet perfume, the half-filled teacups with cigarette butts floating in them. “It’s not for much longer.”

“No, because she’s marrying my brother! So the problem of Olive gets transferred to me. Do you know she had the gall to suggest she take over my job? I do the books and the appointments for my brother’s garage,” Gilda explained, guiding them through a passageway of arches made by the Cathedral’s flying buttresses that led from the Inner to the Outer Close and spat them out in front of the main entrance. “She knows nothing about numbers or motor cars! I put an end to that idea.” A seam of doubt running through her tone made Violet suspect that this was not the case, and feel for her. A spinster’s uncertainty, she thought. It is always there, underlining everything we do.

She glanced up at the Cathedral. Its exterior was always a surprise. Violet had visited several times since childhood, and knew what to expect, but each time she willed it to be spectacular and was once again disappointed. When she thought of a cathedral in the abstract, it always made a big, bold, dramatic entrance. Everything would be tall: the entrance, the body of the building, and especially the tower or spire. It would shout its presence, and its physical essence would not let anyone forget that it was there for the purpose of worship. Nearby Salisbury Cathedral did so with its impressive spire, the tallest in Britain; so did Chichester, which she had seen when visiting her grandparents. On holiday she had admired the handsome square towers of Canterbury Cathedral, and of Lincoln, which dominated and conquered that city as a cathedral should.

In reality Winchester Cathedral squatted like a grey toad in a forgettable green off the High Street. Given that the town had been the central base of power for many kings, the Cathedral was surprisingly easy to miss; Violet often had to direct tourists to it, even when it was just ahead of them. “Oh,” they would say. “Oh.” Where is the tower? she knew they were thinking. For the Cathedral had only a stubby one; it looked like a dog with its tail cut short, or as if the project had run out of funds before they could build higher. It seemed more like an oversized church than a grand cathedral.

“It is better inside,” she wanted to say. “It is spectacular inside.” But Violet was not in the habit of saying what she thought to strangers. Besides, they would find out soon enough.

The green Outer Close spread out around the Cathedral, crisscrossed by two paths lined with lime trees. Everywhere visitors and workers were taking advantage of the sunshine to sit on handkerchiefs or newspapers on the grass and eat sandwiches. A few old graves and tombs dotted the Close, and were given a respectful berth by the picnickers – apart from Gilda, who marched up to one about fifty yards from the Cathedral entrance, under a large yew tree, and dropped down beside it. “Thetcher,” she announced.

Violet studied the waist-high white gravestone. “‘Thomas Thetcher’,” she read aloud, “‘who died of a violent Fever contracted by drinking Small Beer when hot the 12th of May 1764’. Gosh.”

Here sleeps in peace a Hampshire Grenadier,

Who caught his death by drinking cold small Beer.

Soldiers be wise from his untimely fall

And when ye’re hot drink Strong or none at all.

Gilda was able to recite the words from memory rather than looking at the gravestone. “Forget the Cathedral,” she added. “This is the true Winchester landmark.” She patted it fondly, as if it were the family cat, then opened a wax paper packet and laid it out between them. “Share?”

“Oh. All right.” Violet reluctantly pulled out her offering from her handbag. Gilda’s sandwiches contained thick slices of ham and were spread generously with butter rather than the slick of cheap margarine and the meagre layer of fish paste Violet had used for her own.

But Gilda didn’t seem to notice. “I always find sandwiches others have made much more interesting,” she declared, popping a triangle of fish paste sandwich in her mouth. “Like being made a cup of coffee – it always tastes better when someone’s made it for you, don’t you think?”

“I suppose.”

“So, how did you get on with your stitches? Miss Pesel is a brilliant teacher, isn’t she? She makes you want to do well.”

“She is very good. I’m not sure that I am, though.” Violet bit into the ham. It was sweet and delicately smoked, and so delicious she almost cried. The only time she ate well was on the rare occasion she had Sunday lunch at Tom’s, when Evelyn cooked a vigorous roast. At home her mother seemed to relish burning the joint, serving too few potatoes and making watery custard, as a continuing punishment for Violet abandoning her. The succulent, abundant ham made her realise: she was starving.