Barbara Bradford - A Woman of Substance

The job at the little workshop kept her busy from eight in the morning until six, sometimes seven o’clock, at night. Emma actually enjoyed working there and had done so since the first day. Abraham Kallinski ran his Rockingham Street tailoring shop with efficiency, but he was no tyrant, and because he was just, no one ever thought of abusing his kindness. The workers did not have to clock in and there were no stringent rules about talking, or the length of time taken for tea and lunch breaks. The employees were paid by the piece and it was up to them to make a living wage; and providing Abraham met his obligations to the big clothiers on time, he was satisfied, and he did not believe in cracking the whip on principle.

The girls were mostly Gentiles, but all of the men were Jewish. There was a wonderful feeling of camaraderie in the air, with much friendly bantering rising above the clack-clack-clacking of the treadle sewing machines. Emma sat at the long wooden worktable, up to her calves in clippings and bits of padding, working nimbly and at a pace that astounded the most seasoned of the girls. They were a gregarious bunch, all of them Leeds born and bred, blunt, pithily humorous but kindly. They spoke in the odd vernacular particular to Leeds, abbreviating words, slurring others together, dropping h’s and adding them where they should not have been. Emma understood the girls easily enough, for the patois of Leeds was basically a bastardization of the Yorkshire dialect spoken in the rural areas. She herself continued to speak correctly, always conscious of Olivia Wainright’s melodious voice, always parroting it, never permitting herself to fall into the rough speech patterns of her fellow workers. Emma knew that bad habits were easy to acquire and hard to break. At first the girls had teased her about her cultivated voice. ‘Talking like cut glass,’ they called it. Emma simply smiled and took their ribbing in such a good-natured way they soon ceased and accepted her as one of them. But none of the girls at Kallinski’s ever quite became accustomed to her beauty or her air of breeding. They were forever stealing looks at her and they stood in awe of her, although she did not know this.

Abraham kept a watchful eye on Emma, for he would never forget her compassion and rare courage, but he did so without showing her any favouritism, even though he was inordinately fond of her. Emma was always aware of Victor’s hovering presence, particularly when she hit a small problem with her work. Her involvement so preoccupied her she never once noticed the adoration that shone in his gentle eyes whenever they lighted on her. David was her champion. He had taken her under his wing that first Monday morning when he had set her to buttonholing. He was not surprised when she mastered this technique within a few days and became one of the speediest and most adept workers. Conscious of her superior intelligence and her amazing facility for learning with rapidity, he started her cutting sleeves one day when a regular cutter was absent. David had rolled out the long bolt of fine Yorkshire cloth on the wooden trestle table, chalking on the pattern from a paper form and wielding the scissors with a dexterity that was enviable, explaining in detail to Emma as he went along.

Under David’s training Emma soon learned to cut sleeves, lapels, then jacket fronts and backs, and finally trousers, always willing to pitch in and help when they were running behind with orders. By the middle of September she could easily have cut and sewn an entire suit on her own, without assistance from David. Abraham was stunned at her enormous capacity for work and impressed by her quick understanding of all aspects of tailoring. In fact, he was speechless at her skill, her singlemindedness, and her unflagging energy. Victor was silently admiring. David simply grinned like a Cheshire cat. He had perceived the nature of her character at their first meeting, an occasion he would always consider auspicious, if not indeed fortuitous. Emma Harte was a girl who was going places. He would bet his last shilling on that. He had his plans and she was part of them.

Janessa Kallinski continually extended invitations to Friday-night Sabbath dinner, for she had also grown fond of Emma and was as captivated as the rest of the family. Emma regulated her visits scrupulously, displaying an innate sense of social grace. She enjoyed her evenings in this warm and loving Jewish home, but she did not want to take advantage of their hospitality or appear to be forward and opportunistic. And when she did accept an invitation she always arrived with a small gift. A bunch of flowers bought in Leeds Market, a pot of jam she had made in Mrs Daniel’s kitchen, and once a chocolate mousse, painstakingly prepared from Olivia Wainright’s recipe and carried most carefully to the house in the Leylands in one of Mrs Daniel’s best cut-glass bowls. The mousse had been a triumph and had sent the whole of the Kallinski family into gurglings of delight; and they were lavish with their praise of her culinary expertise, which Mrs Daniel had also commented on favourably.

Mostly, however, Emma’s free time was spent alone. She was not always tired at the end of the working day but, since she had no friends in Leeds, other than the Kallinskis, she made her supper in the back kitchen and then retired to her attic. Sometimes she sewed at night, spending endless hours patiently altering the castoffs from Olivia Wainright’s wardrobe. These had been given to her before Mrs Wainright had departed for London, following Adele Fairley’s funeral. If the clothing had seen better days, none of it was so badly worn that it could not be fixed by Emma’s ingenuity and her deftness with a needle. The basic quality and elegance of the clothes was unmistakable, and so she turned frayed cuffs and collars, patched and darned holes, and let out seams. She worked on a grey woollen suit, a red silk dress, various skirts and blouses, and a black woollen coat, as well as the black dress that had been her mother’s, constantly endeavouring to keep her limited wardrobe in the best of condition and neat. She had no intention of buying anything new in the next few years. Occasionally she read the books she had found in the bottom drawer of the chest. She did not always understand the philosophical works, but they intrigued her and she would read sentences over and over again, digesting the words with thoughtfulness, filled with an immense gratification when the true meaning of the books became clear to her. She had a thirst for learning and acquiring knowledge and one of her few purchases had been a dictionary. But her favourite book of all was the volume of William Blake’s poems and she pored over this regularly, reciting the verses aloud, enunciating the difficult words precisely, making a supreme effort to develop and perfect her speaking voice. In point of fact, Emma Harte never wasted a minute of her time, continually striving to better herself.

The first few weeks she had been in Leeds she had lain awake almost every night fretting about the baby. One day it struck her most forcibly that worrying about an event not due to take place until the following March was perfectly ridiculous. Also, it was a waste of time, that most precious of all commodities to Emma. She would think about the baby the day it was born and not before. Then, and only then, would she decide what her next step would be. Emma hoped the baby would be a girl. She was afraid that if it was a boy it would look like Edwin Fairley and that she would hate it for this reason. The poor baby isn’t to blame, she would think, and every day she said to herself: I know it will be a girl, and this invariably cheered her up.

Emma had been to visit Rosie at the Mucky Duck twice, and on the last occasion she had left a note sealed in an envelope for Blackie, telling him where she lived and worked. She had also written to her father. She had told him she had not found a suitable position in Bradford, but that she was staying on in the hopes of doing so. She promised to be in touch soon. The letter had been most purposefully posted in Bradford. Although Emma begrudged spending the money for the railway ticket, she was too terrified to post the letter in Leeds for fear of discovery. And so, with that sense of self-preservation uppermost in her mind, she had trailed all the way to Bradford, posted the letter at the main post office, and taken the next train back to Leeds.