London - Edward Rutherfurd [558]
To Percy, the golden mile was a wonderful place. As a child, he watched the apprentices and the trotters who took samples round and ran errands. Through his father he made friends with some of the cutters, the all-important men at each establishment who cut the patterns for each customer’s individual shape, always on to strong brown paper which would be kept, usually hung on a string, for re-use with the customer’s next order. It was no surprise then that while his brother Herbert, after a brief flirtation with the theatre, soon settled down as a clerk, Percy was eager to serve the five or six year indenture to qualify as a tailor. And when, all on his own, he persuaded a master tailor to take him on and came back to report the fact to his father, Fleming senior had been truly impressed.
“Tom Brown!” he cried in delight. “Now that, Percy, is what I call a real gentleman’s tailor.”
At Tom Brown’s, Percy had spent six very happy years learning the art of tailoring and learned it so well that at the end of that time Mr Brown had made him a good offer of employment. But Percy had other ideas. It was not unusual for a skilled tailor like himself to work independently. He was sure Tom Brown would continue to use him, and working for himself he could take in orders from other tailors too. If you were good, and you were happy to put in long hours, you could make more than you would as an employee, and you had your independence too. But the real impetus had come from Herbert.
“I don’t see enough of you, Percy,” he’d said, “and you’re all that’s left of the family now.” Both their parents had gone by the old century’s end. “Why don’t you come up and live near Maisie and me? The air’s much better up at Crystal Palace, you know. It’d be better for your cough.”
When the vast Crystal Palace had been dismantled after the Great Exhibition, an enterprising group had bought it and reassembled it upon a splendid site on the long ridge, some six miles south of the river, that formed the southern lip of the London geological basin. Until recently, it had been mostly woodland and open field. Gipsy Hill, close by, had been what its name suggested. On the southern slopes of the ridge, even now, the houses soon gave way to open country that stretched away to the wooded ridges of Sussex and Kent as far as the eye could see. But on top of the ridge now, with magnificent views clear over the London basin to the distant hills of Hampstead and Highgate, were streets of houses – mansions in large gardens along the crest, modest houses and suburban villas on the slopes below. The air was excellent, safely away from the London smog in the basin beneath. Crystal Palace, as the area was now called, was a desirable place, and Herbert and his wife Maisie had lived there ever since they married.
“The station’s close. I take the train into the City every morning,” Herbert had pointed out. “But there’s another you could take that goes to Victoria Station. Perfect for the West End. You could get from your door to Savile Row in under an hour.”
Herbert was right about his cough. He had been feeling the effects of the London fogs recently. And if he were to leave Tom Brown and work from home, he would not need to go into London every day. But still it was a big move: he had hesitated to make it.
Percy and Herbert would sometimes meet on a Saturday, when Herbert’s clerical work in the City ended early at two in the afternoon. Today, after a meal in a pub, and since the autumn day was quite fine, the brothers had gone for a walk. Herbert had not mentioned the subject of Percy’s future however, until approaching the old London Stone in Cannon Street, he had pointed to a large structure opposite and remarked: “Now then, Percy, you know what that is!” Cannon Street railway station was a large affair. It covered most of the site where, when the road had still been called