Tracy Chevalier - A Single Thread

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.

“Oh, I was terrible at the start!” Gilda interrupted Violet’s reverie over the ham. She seemed gleeful about her shortcomings. “I thought I’d be stuck on borders and hanking wool forever. But eventually the stitches become second nature and you can relax as you work. I’ve noticed that if I’m tense, my embroidery becomes tense too. And we can’t have a tense cushion in the Cathedral choir, can we? Those choristers need well-made cushions to sit on!”

Violet couldn’t help it – she reached for another ham sandwich, though it went against the usual etiquette of sharing where one alternated for an even distribution. Again Gilda did not seem bothered, but proceeded to quiz Violet on her family, her life in Southampton, and what brought her to Winchester.

“My father died two years ago and it became harder to live with my mother,” Violet replied to the last.

“Is your mum awful?”

“She is, rather. She never really recovered from my brother’s death during the War.” There, she had said it.

Gilda nodded. “Joe came through the War all right, but then we lost Mum to the Spanish ’flu right after he got back. He said he went all the way through the War without crying once, but to get back and lose Mum – that was too much.”

“Did you lose … anyone else?”

Gilda shook her head, and looked around, as if shrugging off the attention. No fiancé, then, Violet thought.

“Arthur!” Gilda jumped up and waved at two men pushing bicycles along the tree-lined path towards the Cathedral entrance. Both had their right trouser legs tucked into their socks to keep them from getting caught in the chains. One was the man with the white hair and moustache Violet had seen at the Cathedral during the broderers’ service. At the sound of Gilda’s voice he stopped, then wheeled his bicycle over to them, followed by a younger, shorter man. Violet scrambled to her feet.

“Hello, Gilda.” The man raised his hat at Gilda, then nodded at Violet. His eyes were bright chips of blue, his gaze warm and direct. She felt herself flush red, though she was not sure why: he was much older than she, and – she automatically glanced – he wore a wedding ring.

“Are we going to hear you soon?” Gilda demanded.

“Not this afternoon. We’re just meeting with the verger to go over the summer schedule. Beyond the normal, there are a few weddings, and the royal birthdays, of course. This is Keith Bain, often our tenor. I’m not sure if you’ve met – he’s lived in Winchester for two years.”

The younger man, small and wiry, with ginger hair and a carpet of freckles, nodded at them.

“This is Violet Speedwell. She’s just joined the Cathedral Broderers, haven’t you, Vi?”

Violet flinched. No one had called her Vi since Laurence died; her family had instinctively understood that his nickname for her was now off-limits. She tried to cover her discomfort by holding out her hand, but as Arthur shook it she suspected he was filing away in his mind: Don’t call her Vi .

He smiled at her. “Your name – that was very clever of your parents.”

“Clever how?” Gilda wanted to know.

“Speedwell is the common name for veronica, a kind of purple flower. And they named her Violet.”

“It was my father’s idea,” Violet explained. “My brothers have – had – have more traditional names.” She did not name them – she did not want to say George’s name aloud.

“Good thing they didn’t name you Veronica!” Gilda laughed. “Veronica Veronica.”

“I see you’ve chosen Thetcher to sit by.” Arthur nodded at the gravestone.

“I’d never seen it before,” Violet admitted.

“Ah, then you must not be from Winchester.”

“No. Southampton. I moved here seven months ago.”

“I thought not. I would have known you otherwise.” His tone was neutral but somehow the words were not. Violet’s cheeks grew warm again.

“Arthur and I went to the same church for a long time,” Gilda explained. “I played with his daughter at Sunday school. She’s in Australia now, and Arthur’s moved to the country. To Nether Wallop, the most beautiful village in England, and with the funniest name.”

Even as Arthur was correcting her – “Technically our cottage is in Middle Wallop” – Violet was remembering a visit to Nether Wallop with her father and brothers when she was a girl. “I have been there,” she said. “The Douce pyramid.”

Keith Bain and Gilda looked puzzled, but Arthur nodded. “Indeed.” He turned to the others. “In the churchyard at Nether Wallop there is a pyramid on the grave of Francis Douce. Apparently the family liked pyramids, as other relatives had them built as well, such as at Farley Mount.” He smiled again at Violet, and she silently thanked her father for plotting the route of their short walking holiday so that they passed through Nether Wallop. She would have been eleven, Tom seven, and George thirteen. Mrs Speedwell had not come with them, which made the holiday more relaxed and put them all in good moods as they’d taken the train to Salisbury and a cart up to Stonehenge, then began walking through woods and skirting newly planted fields of wheat. At Nether Wallop they stayed at the Five Bells, and went to look at the church, where George had got a leg-up from their father so he could grab the stone flame that topped the pyramid tombstone, and declared himself the King of Egypt. If any of them had been told that day that eleven years later he and hundreds of thousands of other British men would be dead, they would not have believed it.