Flora McIvor Read online

  ‘I will think about what Mother Abbess suggests,’ Flora deferred.

  ‘But perhaps you are not ready for the enclosed life?’

  It was observation more than question, so Flora let it lie.

  ‘I deal with our community’s business in the town.’ Teresa took up her own thought. ‘There is a shop close by in Jean St Denis that takes in fine needlework. Its owner is a Madame Guyon who is a widow. She might be able to employ your skills, while you decide what to do.’

  ‘Yes, I would like that,’ responded Flora immediately.

  ‘Good, I will speak to her when I am out next. In the meantime, don’t overtax your strength, or be anxious. God cares for each of his daughters.’ And with a reassuring smile the older woman returned to her duties.

  Flora sat as she had been before, and wondered at her lack of hesitation. To become a seamstress. But it would be living by her own hands. She gathered up the scribbled pages and put them back into the basket below her table. It was time to find Sister Maria and do some washing. Her arms stretched in readiness right down to her finger tips.

  She was on a river. The boat was moving of its own accord and black water parted on each side of the prow. Thick weeds waved below the surface. The banks on each side were covered by bushes or reeds.

  She stared down and trailed her arms in the current. She was searching for pieces from the river. Trawling them from the flow. They were laid out behind her in the bottom of the boat. But something was missing. It was the most important.

  Beneath water was speeding up. She was being pursued. As the boat raced she saw something deep below and reached out. It was slipping through her fingers. A face turned. His head was on the river bed. She could not reach.

  Hair like weeds, pale flesh, empty eyes. She was falling.

  Flora sat up, awake. Her pulse was racing. There was a dull grey light at the window. She wiped her forehead on the sheet, got up and sat at the table. She reached below for paper and dipping her pen began to write rapidly describing her dream.

  Then her hand slowed and she put the pen down. This dream had occurred before, though not in recent days. It was already recorded somewhere in her accumulated pages. And she knew the story she was in. Isis searching for her brother, his dismembered body. That was the real sorrow beneath everything. Which she would take with her from the convent as she had brought it there.

  Quietly she lifted her unlit candle and opened the door of her room. The corridor stretched in both directions passed repeated doors. A night light flickered on a little table at each end. Flora stepped along quietly and lit her candle from the flame. Then she returned to her room sheltering the candle with her hand.

  She set the holder down and lifted the whole basket of papers onto the table beside it. Then carefully without reading any of the words on them she burnt the pages one by one. Till all that she had was a basketful of ashes. By the time she had finished the light outside was brighter than the solitary candle. She shivered, blew the candle out and got back beneath her bedcovers. Quickly she slipped below the surface into peaceful sleep.

  Flora’s apprenticeship came in trial stages. First she received piece work from Madame Guyon, which she was allowed to complete in the privacy of her own room. Teresa brought the packages which Sister Maria carried along to the seamstress, with a bustle of advice. More housekeeper than nun, Maria was diverted by this unexpected turn of events and full of advice and critical comment, as the bundles were unwrapped and then repackaged for return to the shop.

  The work was straightforward. It involved hemming and alterations to the stomachers and underskirts which supported the elaborate dresses of fashionable women. ‘How could anyone fit in that?’ scolded the buxom Maria. Flora noticed wryly that she had not been entrusted with the visible silks and satins. Perhaps Madame Guyon and Teresa had agreed that these were unfit for import to the convent. She progressed steadily and efficiently with these routine tasks, finishing ahead of whatever schedule Madame Guyon observed.

  Whether Flora had passed her first test, or the delivery routine was proving too cumbersome, Sister Teresa announced that Mother Abbess had given permission for the apprentice to leave her house and go to the shop by day coming back each evening. This was a notable concession for an enclosed order and suggested that the hope Flora might stay on in the convent had been surrendered. The new arrangement would begin on the next Monday.

  On Sunday evening, when the house was already falling into the even deeper silence that presaged sleep, there was a muffled tap at Flora’s door. There was Sister Maria casting hurried glances up and down the corridor, while holding a cloth cover tightly over a tray.

  ‘Sister, come in.’

  ‘Thank you, Flora, thank you kindly. What a lovely name that is. Flora, the flower, so Teresa tells me with all her learning. I have little enough of that I fear.’

  ‘Have you brought me more work?’

  ‘No, not at all.’ Maria’s voice sank. ‘I thought we should trim your hair before, you know, you are out and about in the town.’ And she uncovered her tray to reveal scissors, a comb and brush, and a little wooden framed mirror.’

  ‘A mirror!’

  ‘Hush now or Mother Abbess will be down on us.’

  With deft though pudgy hands, Maria set out her utensils on the little table. She pulled the table round against its long side and gestured for Flora to sit before the propped up mirror. She lit an extra candle. Then taking up the long dark waves of hair she clipped them short against the head, side and back. The shorter strands crimped and curled naturally.

  ‘This is how Parisian woman wear their hair,’ Maria pronounced firmly.

  ‘But I am a seamstress,’ laughed Flora, ‘not a lady of fashion.’

  ‘Working for fashionable women,’ insisted Maria. ‘We can’t have you wandering around like Delilah before Samson trimmed her locks, or was it the other way round? I always nod off at Scripture reading.’

  ‘Maria, it is lovely. I can’t thank you enough.’ Flora looked at her image in the mirror, surprised that the likeness was so unchanged from what she remembered.

  ‘Oh dear but I’ll miss you, Flora, amongst us dried out old sticks.’

  ‘Oh Maria, don’t cry. Who knows whether I’ll manage at all?’

  ‘Don’t be daft. Of course you’ll manage. These are the cleverest little hands I have ever seen.’

  She gave the delicate hands a squeeze and busied herself tidying the tray. Then she bent down breathlessly to gather up Flora’s abundant shed locks.

  ‘Don’t, Maria, please let me tidy those.’

  ‘No. Miss Flora, don’t you, please. Let me wait on you properly, just this once. I never met a Jacobite lady before, yet we pray daily for the restoration of King James. Did you meet Bonnie Prince Charlie?’

  ‘I did, Maria.’

  ‘Is he as handsome as they say?’

  ‘He was, Maria, when he was young. I knew him then in Rome.’

  ‘I thought so, I did. Who was this Flora MacDonald in Scotland?’

  ‘Maria!’

  ‘Don’t mind an old stout lady, Miss. We all have our dreams.’

  Flora gathered the kindly figure in her arms and hugged as hard as she could. ‘Thank you, dear Maria. I could not have got through without you and Teresa. Thank you for my hair cut. I’ll hold up my head in Paris now.’

  ‘Good night,’ whispered Maria as she inched the door open and squeezed out. ‘God bless and sleep tight.’

  Flora was left smiling to herself in the narrow room. She lifted up her hands to feel the new shape that her head had been given. Then she pulled out her own clothes from under the bed in search of the plainest dress she could find.

  The Carmelite convent of St Teresa was sightless from outside. Its only windows looked inwards onto a narrow courtyard and few sounds seemed to penetrate, even though the building was in the centre of Paris. When she emerged on the first morning and looked about, Flora could see why. The little street onto which
the gates opened was blocked beside the convent by a wall which screened the Louvre Palace. So the long external wall adjoined the quiet courts in front of the Palace. On the other side the Convent was built against a spacious Oratory with its monastic house and church. St Teresa had walled her in silence.

  By contrast turning at the other end of the street into the Rue St Honoré, Flora was met by a barrage of noise. She shrank back putting hands to her ears, as carts, carriages, horses, barrows, hawkers and hucksters fought for space. After a few moments she launched herself into the throng and was carried along with its current. She had only yards to overcome as St Jean Denis was the third street along, past the Church of St Honoré. It was a narrow street full of shops but she had no difficulty finding her new place of employment.

  Madame Guyon was presiding in the front shop. She was a stately figure, tall and dressed from head to toe in black satins. Her features were broad, olive-skinned and impassive.

  ‘Miss Maceevour, you are welcome to my house.’

  ‘No, please, call me Flora.’

  ‘Well, Miss Flora, you are welcome.’

  ‘Thank you, I hope my work will be satisfactory.’

  ‘Very, I am sure. Now please come to the work table.’

  There was something in Madame’s speech that Flora could not place, but there was no time for further conversation. Behind the small front shop was a long room stretching to the back of the building. On one side was a wide extended bench for cutting and sewing. In every other direction garments hung or were draped from a variety of hooks, rods, improvised pulleys and poles. Two other women were already busy at the table.

  Flora’s piece work on plain undergarments had not prepared her for the visual splendours of the workroom. The robes, dresses and coats which festooned Madame Guyon’s establishment were of the richest and most elaborate kind. Some were clearly court costumes while others represented the wealth and leisure of the city. Moreover the garments were for men and women. She raised a hand and drew her palm down over the layered flounces of a mantua. It reminded her of the dresses that had hung on in Clementina Sobieski’s wardrobe long after the Queen’s death.

  ‘Good fabric,’ Madame Guyon noted with approval, ‘but old fashioned now for general wear.’

  This was a changed world from the Convent of St Teresa three streets away. Flora could see why her tasks there had been so restricted. Soon she was seated at the table and being shown her first jobs by the two women who were called Jeanne and Adrienne. Madame Guyon returned to her role as public ambassador. The day passed quickly. Flora was quick to learn and the others were glad to see another ready pair of hands. There seemed to be no end of jobs finished, half-finished and still to be done. Flora hurried home through the darkening streets and after a quick supper fell gratefully asleep.

  The first week was filled by the same routine. As Flora gained experience of the different kinds of job, from alterations to reworkings and complete new garments, she began also to understand the unspoken system by which the work was ordered and processed. Immediately above the table were the jobs in hand along with any urgent work that was to be given priority. This could only happen if instructed by Madame Guyon. The long wall behind was stocked several layers deep with the standard queue of garments which edged their way toward the upper end and finally the table. The business prospered.

  Flora also became aware that the front counter and the workshop did not comprise the full extent of Madame Guyon’s premises. A curtain to one side of the shop opened to reveal a steep stair and every so often Adrienne or Jeanne would be summoned to take a finished job up to a fitting room above. Then Madame would usher a customer up the stair. There were apparently four little rooms for fittings, and above that Madame Guyon’s own apartment. Flora was kept to the back and did not meet any of the clients, though she could hear the voices in the front shop. At other times one of the women would be sent out to deliver a job for fitting elsewhere.

  After, three weeks of working six days each week, Madame Guyon spoke to Flora in the front shop before she left.

  ‘Your work is very satisfactory, Miss Flora. Is it not time now to leave the Convent and receive your own wages?’

  ‘I have nowhere else to go, Madame Guyon.’

  ‘I thought so. Bring your things here. There is a closet in the shop where you can sleep, behind the stair, and there is water at the pump in the back court. Then you can decide what to do. Do you want that?’

  ‘Yes,’ Flora heard herself saying.

  ‘Good, then I will speak to Sister Teresa.’

  So that was settled. Flora’s apprenticeship was over. A week later on the Monday she left her refuge with a bundle of possessions and Sister Teresa’s tearful blessing.

  From the moment Flora left the convent to stay in Madame Guyon’s closet, she entered a different world. Until then she had been treated in Jean St Denis as an exotic who might at any time revert to the protection of religion. She had been handled with kid gloves. Now she was an equal in the ups and downs of ordinary city life. Immediately Jeanne and Adrienne became more expansive about the eccentricities of Madame Guyon and the foibles of her customers.

  The accommodation was no more austere than St Teresa had provided. Flora had a small pallet which she could roll up by day. It was warm in the closet and after she got beneath the blanket she could leave the curtain partly open for light and air. It was like a child’s bedroom and she relished her lonely and silent possession of the shop during the hours of curfew. After closing hours Flora also had the run of the little back court with its pump and stone drain. There were stone shelves at the back door where she could keep bread, cheese and fruit from the street stalls. Madame Guyon’s wages allowed the seamstress to add small coin to the little bag of money she had carried from Boulogne.

  During working hours Flora was now sent out and about like the others to fit clothes and deliver finished jobs. She quickly became familiar with St Honoré, and the surrounding street as far as the Tuileries in one direction, and the Seine bridges in the other. She was startled to find that the Palais Royal was just round the corner from Jean St Denis. This was where Charles Edward had been abducted by the French authorities, after refusing to leave Paris. He had been seized in the colonnade after attending the opera, thrown into a coach, and unceremoniously bundled out of the country.

  Not only had the French made peace with Britain but Charles was uncomfortably popular, the young hero who had personally led his people into battle against the Hanoverians. Flora went cautiously through the archway by the theatre to see the gardens and courts beyond. It was a different ordered world, just yards from the noisy chaos of the main thoroughfare. Ideal for kidnapping.

  Flora was nervous, intruding on the past, in case it tried to claim her. That episode had been the start of Charles’ incognito, living in disguise like a spy or fugitive. At the work table Jeanne and Adrienne were full of gossip about the Young Prince still being hidden in the city. Glengarry had disdained disguise. playing only himself. But that had been his most deceitful part.

  Later in the shop Flora mentioned her brief visit to the Palais Royal, and asked about if opera was still performed there. The others looked at her in surprise and burst out laughing.

  ‘You haven’t noticed,’ spluttered Adrienne.

  ‘What?’ asked Flora, ‘noticed what?’

  ‘All these costumes,’ gestured Jeanne, ‘nobody wears that old stuff now.’

  ‘They’re for singers and actors, Flora, you Convent goose. Madame Guyon’s famous for her theatre fittings.’

  Flora blushed to the roots of her dark hair. Of course her ideas of court fashion were years out of date. She just did not notice that many of the outfits were out of date too. Presumably Madame Guyon had not mentioned this side of her business to Sister Teresa, as theatres and convents did not mix well. Then Flora started to laugh too.

  ‘What a fool. I am not safe to be let out of a convent.’

  ‘You’re not and that
’s the truth,’ scolded Jeanne, ‘someone might take advantage.’ This set both of them off again, and Flora found herself laughing along in some kind of strange relief. Then Madame Guyon’s tall shadow loomed over the threshold.

  ‘Very amusing, ladies, I am most sure. But we are behind with these jobs.’

  ‘Yes, Madame Guyon’

  ‘Of course, Madam, just drawing breath.’

  The three women glanced at each other as they picked up their seams, forcibly suppressing another outburst of merriment.

  The next day, Madame Guyon sent Flora to an apartment in Richelieu Street up from the Palais Royal. A richly ornamented dress was to be fitted privately for a famous though rather elderly opera singer.

  ‘You take this one, Flora, for it is mainly your work, and very fine work it is too. Marie Pélissier is a woman who understands quality, unlike some that might be mentioned. Tact is needed also, my dear, for Madame is not a young woman. You I believe have the tact, unlike some that might be mentioned.’

  Flora hurried into the front shop to wrap the altered dress before either of the others might catch her eye, or Madame Guyon’s imperious gaze. Soon she was out onto the street where a bright midday sun lent the usual cacophony an air of temporary cheer. Richelieu Street took her in a quieter direction where the crumbling wood and plaster facades of Jean St Denis gave way to the handsome stone facades of town houses interspersed with elegant apartments. She found the address and the concierge let her up.

  ‘Knock loudly,’ she warned, ‘Madame Pélissier is getting deaf.’

  Up meant four floors with stairs narrowing at each level. The last flight was steep, finishing at a substantial door. Flora knocked loudly. And again.

  ‘Don’t hammer, I’m coming.’

  The door inched open and a grey cropped head peered round.

  ‘Is that the dress?’

  ‘Yes, Madame Pélissier, from Madame Guyon.’

  ‘There’s no need to Madame me or her for that matter. You’d better come in.’

  The head turned and Flora followed obediently down a dim hall into a spacious room whose windows opened onto the rooftops of Paris.