The Shop Girls of Chapel Street Read Free Page B

wasn’t in any hurry.’ Unruffled as always, the co-owner of the drapery shop put Violet at her ease. ‘You can help me unpack these new embroidery silks if you’ve got time.’
    â€˜Ooh, I like those!’ Violet took several of the small skeins from Muriel and laid them across her palm. The colours of the silk thread shone like emeralds, sapphires and rubies. ‘Can I take a couple for Aunty Winnie and pay you at the end of the week?’
    â€˜By all means. Let me wrap them in tissue paper.’ Muriel bent to her task with precise, careful movements, her small hands folding and tucking neatly, fair hair falling forward to hide her refined features. She was still single at thirty and despite her delicate good looks, was considered a settled spinster who devoted her time to good causes such as the St John Ambulance and the Red Cross. She ran the business she shared with Ida Thomson with quiet confidence. ‘How is Winnie – plodding on as usual?’ she asked Violet, whose attention had wandered to the array of zipped fasteners on display in the rack by the window.
    â€˜Yes, she’s doing nicely, thanks.’
    â€˜What do you think of the zips?’
    â€˜I say they beat hooks and eyes or press studs any day.’
    â€˜You’re right, they do, though putting them in takes practice. You need a special foot for your sewing machine. Come upstairs and I’ll show you.’
    Eagerly following Muriel up some narrow stairs at the back of the shop and along a first-floor landing, Violet was already planning to insert the newfangled fastener into an apple-green summer dress she was making. They went up a second flight of stairs to a small mending and alteration room where they found Ida hard at work.
    It was the first time Violet had been invited behind the scenes at Jubilee and she was intrigued by what she saw. The white-painted room had bare floorboards and sloping ceilings with a dormer window that overlooked a back lane running parallel to Chapel Street from Brewery Road up to Linton Park. It contained two long tables laid out with garments, scissors and thread, plus a treadle sewing machine pushed back into the alcove formed by the dormer. It was here that Ida sat, a picture of concentration as she worked the treadle with her foot and eased silky fabric under the pounding needle to accomplish a perfectly straight seam.
    â€˜Show Violet the foot you need to use for zip fasteners,’ Muriel instructed Ida before hurrying back downstairs to answer a loud knock on the door.
    â€˜I’ll bet you anything that’s Mrs Barlow,’ Ida guessed. ‘She’ll be after stockings or such like. Something she can’t do without.’
    â€˜Doesn’t she know you’re closed?’ Violet wondered, paying attention to the small metal contraption that Ida was showing her.
    â€˜Shop hours mean nothing to the likes of Alice Barlow. She drops by regardless, knowing we can’t afford to turn away custom. See, you unscrew the normal foot then insert this new one, like so. Then you’re ready to sew in the zip fastener.’
    Caught up in the ins and outs of the exciting innovation, Violet drew closer. ‘But you have to tack in the zip beforehand?’
    â€˜To make a proper job of it, yes you do.’ Ida smiled up at her. Considered less stiff and starchy than Muriel, Ida’s dark brown eyes were lively and intelligent and she gave off the air of someone who took an interest in everything and everyone around her. ‘When’s your next day off?’ she asked. ‘I could show you exactly how it’s done.’
    â€˜Chance would be a fine thing,’ Violet countered. Days off from Hutchinson’s were rare as hens’ teeth, and anyway her uncle constantly reminded her that she should jump at any chance of overtime because the household needed every penny she could earn.
    Ida raised an eyebrow. ‘The old slave driver