“Hand me those scissors, ma petite,” she would say. “Bring me the pins. Ah, what should I do without my little helper.” Then I felt happy,
“You work very hard, Grand’mere,” I said to her one day.
“I am this lucky lady,” she replied. She spoke a mixture of French and English which was different from the speech of anyone else. In the school room we did a kind of laboured French, announcing our possession of a pen or a dog or a cat and asking the way to the post office. Julia and Cassie had to struggle with it far more earnestly than I, who, because I lived so close to Grand’mere, could deliver the words with ease and a different accent from that of Miss Everton, which did not please her.
Grand’mere went on: “I am here in this beautiful house with my little one. I am happy. She is happy. She is growing into a lalented lady. Oh yes you are. It is here that you will get that which will make you get on in the world. This is the good life here, mon amour.”
I loved the way she said mon amour. It reminded me that she loved me very dearly—more than anyone else did.
She never joined the rest of the household. It was only when she was making dresses for the family that she came down to the drawing room to see Lady Sallonger, which was because Lady Sallonger was too delicate to mount the stairs to be fitted.
Each afternoon Grand’mere took a walk in the gardens. I often joined her then and we would sit in the pond garden and talk. There was always plenty to talk about with Grand’mere. A great deal of it was about the materials and how they were woven and what sort of dresses would be most suitable for them. Grand’mere was at The Silk House to design dresses and to show how materials should be made up in the way most suitable for them. A kind of brake would arrive, drawn by two horses which had come the sixteen miles from Spitalfields to Epping Forest, and the bales would be carried up to the top of the house. I would dash up to examine them with Grand’mere.
She would grow ecstatic. She was very excitable. She would hold the materials to her cheek and sigh. Then she would drape them round me and clasp her hands in ecstasy, her bright brown eyes shining with enthusiasm. We looked forward to the arrival of the bales.
Grand’mere was quite an important person in the household. She made her own rules. I supposed she could have taken her meals with the family had she wished. But she was as autocratic in her way as Clarkson and Mrs. Dillon were in theirs.
Her meals were carried up to the top of the house and none of the housemaids dared show the slightest resentment, for Grand’mere had an air of great dignity and authority. Oh yes, she was certainly an important person in the household. She accepted these services in a different way from Miss Everton, who always felt she had to make sure that she received the deference due to her. Grand’mere just behaved as though there was no need to stress her importance for they all must be aware of it.
When I began to discover that I was different from the other children it was a great relief to remember that Grand’mere and I belonged together. On the rare occasions when Sir Francis came to The Silk House, he always visited Grand’mere. They talked about the materials, of course, and he discussed all sorts of things with her.
It was because of this that she was regarded with some awe by the rest of the household. The top rooms of the house were ours. There were four of them: the big light workroom; our bedrooms—two small rooms with narrow slits of windows and a communicating door between them; and a small sitting room.
The small rooms were part of the old house—the workroom, of course, having been added by a Sallonger.
“This is our domain,” said Grand’mere. “Here we are in our little kingdom. This is yours and mine … and here we are kings in our little castle … but perhaps I say queens, eh?”
She was a small woman with masses of hair which had once been black and now had streaks of white in it. She wore it piled high on her head with a Spanish comb sparkling in it. She was very proud of her hair.
“The hair must always be … elegant,” she said. “Even the finest satin and best silk in the whole world will give you little … if there is no style in the hair.” Her eyes were large; they sparkled with joy or blazed with indignation, or could go cold with contempt or light up with love. They betrayed each and every one of Grand’mere’s moods. They were her great beauty, of course—they and her hair. She had long slender fingers, and I shall always remember their darting movements over patterns she had made as she cut out the dress materials on the big table in the workroom. She was so slight that sometimes I feared she would float away. I told her this and added: “What should I do if you did?”
Usually she laughed at my fancies but she did not laugh at that one. She was very serious.
“All will be well with you … always … as it was with me. I could stand on these two feet… from the time I was a young girl. It is because there is something I can do well. That is what there must be. Something … anything … better than others … and there will always be a place for you in the world. You see, I fashion a work of art with a bale of cloth, a sewing machine and a pair of scissors… . Oh, but it is more than that. Anyone can work the treadle, anyone can cut… cut… cut. No, it is a little something … the inspiration … the little bit of genius which you bring to your trade. That is what counts. And if you have that … there will always be a place for you. You, my little one, will walk in my footsteps. I will show you the way. And then … whatever happens, you have nothing to fear. Always I will watch over you.”
I knew she would.
It was no hardship for me to learn from her. When the bales came in, she would make sketches and ask my opinion. When I drew a design myself she was delighted. She showed me where I had gone wrong and then put in a few deft touches; it was a design which was used in the end. “Lenore’s gown,” she called it. I always remembered it because it was made of a lovely shade of lavender. Afterwards Grand’mere told me that Sir Francis was very pleased. It was the right gown for the material.
When the dresses had been seen by Sir Francis and some of his managers, they were packed up and taken away. Then fresh bales arrived. There was a very exclusive salon in London where they were sold. This was another branch of the Sallonger silk empire.
I remember well the day when she talked to me and told me how we came to be living here at The Silk House.
I had gone to her perplexed. We had been riding for we had riding lessons every day. One of the grooms always took us. We had begun by riding round the paddock; there was a jump there, too.
Julia was a good horsewoman. I was quite good, too. Cassie could not get on with it. I think she was rather frightened of the horses although she had been given the mildest in the stables. I always kept my eyes on her when we cantered or galloped round the paddock and I think she took special comfort from this fact.