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By Root 263 0

moment and looked around her, marvelling anew at the size of the Unwin empire. Through the glazed door she could see the entrance to the coffin workshop where the carpenters worked around an engraver embellishing the brass or (highly recommended for the more discerning) silver coffin plates. To the right was a new workroom with a long bench where Mrs Unwin, having realised what a profit could be turned on everlasting flowers, was now teaching some of the girls how to make immortelles. Outside in the yard, the stonemasons could be heard chipping memorials, and beyond these was a smithy with a blacksmith and grooms in attendance. Close to hand, to the right of the space where Grace was sitting, was a flight of steps down to the enclosed and cool area known as God’s waiting room, where – although it was more usual for a deceased loved one to remain at home – one or two bodies always lay awaiting burial. During Grace’s first week at the Unwins’, two of the seamstresses, jealously presuming from Grace’s looks that she was going to become a favourite with the grooms, shut her in with two bodies overnight and hoped for hysterics. Grace, however, after acquainting herself with the cadavers and discovering nothing to be scared of in two old women who’d had a peaceful death, merely went to sleep on the floor. Besides, she’d not become a favourite of the grooms, for she didn’t join in with any of their larks and rather kept herself to herself. She never forgot that she was fallen.

Now she carefully threaded the needle, positioned her stool in order to get the best light from the small window, and began feather-stitching, very neat and close, shaping the trunk of the willow tree. She would use tiny, tiny chain-stitches for its leaves and the slab monument would be outlined in back-stitch. Thank goodness Mrs Unwin had said no to the man’s name! Besides, the bereaved woman already had two plaited wrist bracelets made from her husband’s hair and an oil portrait painted after his death and surely, Grace thought, these reminders were enough for anyone.

It took the best part of a day, but by late afternoon Grace had finished the embroidery for the brooch and had been given a new task: that of stitching the man’s initials on to what was to be his coffin pillow. Working white embroidery thread into white linen was not nearly as tiring as working in human hair, but WWBH were all quite large initials and, as dusk fell and the candle burned low, embroidering white on white became more and more tedious and Grace began to wish heartily that the corpse’s names didn’t begin with so many and such extravagant letters.

She finished this second task a little after eight o’clock. It was usually about this time that she went into the scullery to warm some soup, eat bread and cheese, or – if she were especially weary – merely went to the room she shared with Jane and, after washing and attending to any personal tasks, fell asleep. This particular evening, however, feeling a need to get out after being hunched up indoors for so long, she left the Unwin building intending to walk towards the Edgware Road, breathe in the dusky twilight and marvel at the traffic in all its noisy, hooting, shouting, neighing muddle.

While she stood watching, the swirling spider’s web of roads that circled around the arch became jammed – a common occurrence – and all the vehicles came to a complete halt. A smart carriage reined in next to where Grace was standing and its four horses stamped their feet, their breath making clouds of steam in the cold air. The carriage had purple-liveried footmen at front and rear, four brass lamps, and was such a glossy black that Grace could see her reflection in it. It also had some sort of shield on the door, and wondering what this might be, Grace bent to look a little closer. Seeing a shield with a lion and a unicorn on either side she realised, with a sudden pounding of the heart, that she was looking at the royal coat of arms.

Astonished, she straightened up and stared in the window, there to see the world’s most famous royal couple,