Loretta took the opportunity to walk around the shop and enjoy her tea, straightening the odd out-of-place packet, a ball of wool that mayhave been returned to the wrong section, a packet of buttons that had fallen to the floor.
The Butterbury Sewing Box, started by Loretta’s Grandma Eve, had been fuelled by a pure love of fabric, colour and Loretta’s gran’s ability to create. It was nestled at the edge of a village street with not much else around apart from a small corner shop selling newspapers, bread, milk and the odd thingyou might well need before you next made it to the supermarket, and a shop that fixed lawnmowers. Out past the grounds of the old manor surrounded by a Cotswold stone wall, and before you reached the rambling green fields and countryside footpaths that bisected the land, the road where the shop sat wasn’t a thoroughfare, they weren’t subject to the ebb and flow of footfall dependent on the seasons,but a steady custom had kept them and still kept them here. Butterbury was a village that had held onto its charm with a range of independent shops, and the jewel was Lantern Square at its heart, with well-tended flowerbeds, weaving pathways, and compact lawn areas surrounded by iron railings. Lantern Square was often a drawcard with a handful of annual events and this side of Christmas meant thevillage tree at one end, food and mulled wine carts, and the merriment that came from living in a village large enough that you could maintain a personal life, yet small enough that people still raised a hand to wave in greeting.
The interior of the Butterbury Sewing Box still had the same dark wood shelves it had always had, give or take a few sympathetic replacements, the panelling on the wallsremained, as did the glass shelves that had some of the family creations made over the years, which would forever be a part of the shop: a pearl-grey miniature yarn basket knitted by Rebecca with knitting needles poking from out between its brown leather handles; a rhubarb-and-custard coloured bobble hat Ginny made was shaped around a polystyrene mould; Loretta’s knitted doll with a smile androsy cheeks in a patchwork dress with long legs dangling and knitted Mary Janes on her feet. Ivor’s love of knitting and crochet was here for all to see too, because for each of his granddaughters he’d knitted their favourite nursery rhyme – Fern had Humpty Dumpty sitting on a knitted wall, for Daisy he’d knitted the clock from ‘Hickory Dickory Dock’ and added the white mouse, and for Ginny, she’salways loved ‘Jack and Jill’ and so the two knitted figurines, Jack holding the pail and wearing his crown, stood side by side on the shelves with everything else. It was personal touches like this that piqued customers’ interest and made the Butterbury Sewing Box what it was today.
Loretta set her cup down on the walnut counter that had stood in the same position for decades, at the back witha view of the front door. At one end sat an old-fashioned till that, according to Loretta’s eldest daughter Fern, seriously needed an upgrade. Fern had mentioned it more than once, telling her mother it needed bringing up to date and modernising. Daisy always said it added character to the place, but of course, she would, anything to argue back her point with her eldest sister. Ginny, the middledaughter, hadn’t got involved in the argument, she did her best to avoid that or any other confrontation having been the peacemaker for so many years.
As Daisy did the honours and served a gentleman who came in to buy a pair of gloves, Loretta perused the photographs on the wall that sat at a right angle to the counter, the wall they passed every time they came and went from the back of the shopto the front. The wooden panelling held some of the most treasured memories grabbed over the years starting from the black and white print of Loretta’s grandparents, arms around one another, smiles beaming, in front of the shop when it first opened. Customers loved seeing this one, knowing how the Butterbury Sewing Box came to be. Among the memories on the wall was another of her Grandma Eve sittingon a stool holding a quilting hoop on her lap as she worked on a quilt that covered her legs, her face knitted in concentration. Every time Loretta saw this picture it reminded her of how her gran had been the one to teach her quilting for the very first time, a skill she’d worked on over the years with Ivor and Rebecca’s help as time went on, and then passed on to her own daughters. Quiltinghad been just a tiny part of Grandma Eve’s portfolio of talent – she made clothes, from trousers and skirts to play dresses and outfits for best. Her passion had started in war times and it was the inspiration behind the Butterbury Sewing Box. Grandma Eve had even embroidered the prettiest handkerchief for Loretta’s sixteenth birthday, intricate pink and white roses on the frilly border that curvedand dipped with a ridge of deeper pink. The handkerchief was tucked away in Loretta’s drawer in her bedroom, a treasured piece that had once been in her grandma’s hands and was now in hers. She smiled, remembering how her grandma had told her that young ladies should always carry a handkerchief with them, it was simply what you did.
On the same wall as the photographs was a square pinboard andon that, fixed beneath colourful headed pins, were all Ginny’s postcards from her trips far and wide. Every time another one landed on the mat, Loretta would devour it and pin it up on display with the rest, glad her daughter was having such adventures. The card showed a colourful depiction of the tulip farms in Holland, a stunning image of the Belvedere Palace in Vienna, the vibrant Christmas marketsin Basel and sparkling winter snow in Copenhagen. And no matter whether Ginny had been somewhere before, she’d always send another card.
The photograph at the end was one of Loretta’s three girls, sitting in age order, Fern on the left, then Ginny, then Daisy, all of them focusing on the special quilt spread across their laps as though they were discussing it, its intricacies and meaning. Thequilt had been lost some time ago, sadly, but here it was, captured in black and white with the three girls gazing at it in awe. Harry had taken the picture without any of them realising and what Loretta treasured most was that the photograph depicted the closeness the three siblings had once shared, the sisterhood that had somehow evaporated along the way.
Loretta thought about that quilt andmany others, the way the girls had worked together and bonded over them every Sunday. Back then the shop had only opened during the week and on a Saturday, Sundays had been a true day of rest, and Loretta had always spent it with her family. The next picture along on the wall was again taken by Harry and this time Loretta was with her daughters, all four of them on their hands and knees as theypositioned squares, all of which had to be pieced together to make the quilt that lay across Loretta’s double bed to this day. The material had gradually dulled over time, its slight imperfections – the crooked stitching between an emerald green square and another with sunflowers, the jagged way the piece of lace had been sewn onto a countryside scene in another square – were what made it unique andspecial, and the sentiment as well as the closeness of that activity had never faded for Loretta. She would forever adore the quilt with its blue base and backing, squares of bright turquoise, midnight blue embroidered with silky pale crescent moons, pale blue checks taken from Fern’s old school dress, the puffy white clouds against an exquisite sky blue that Ginny had painstakingly cut out byhand before sewing on. The quilt had a couple of denim squares too, material Daisy sourced from a cut-up pair of jeans that hadn’t actually been in line for recycling. Loretta could see those denim squares in the photograph now and smiled at the memory as she always did, remembering Daisy’s expression when she was scolded for hacking to pieces the perfectly good pair of jeans Harry had bought herrather than an old pair that no longer fit. The scolding hadn’t lasted long though, it never did with Daisy. Over the years Loretta had made the odd repair to the quilt, replaced some of the batting as it lost its oomph, and it had never stopped being a reminder of her family and closer times.
Loretta wished it was as easy to get her three girls together now as it had been then. Looking at thecarefree trio in the picture she wondered when they’d moved from being close-knit to having their sibling relationships hanging on by a thread, swinging in the wind, likely to break with the smallest tug.
When Fern was born forty-one years ago, Loretta had wondered whether it would be she who would take over the shop eventually, but then Ginny arrived a little over four years later, and finallyDaisy six years on from that, and then Loretta had been in a cloud of parenting and hadn’t given a second thought as to who would want the shop she was so busy raising the girls and keeping the business going. She’d indulged, however, on more than one occasion, imagining all three girls wanting to take on the business, perhaps even together. But that had never happened. Fern had lost interest insewing, quilting, or anything creative at all, so much so that Loretta found it hard to believe they shared the same DNA. Once Fern got to her teens Loretta would’ve been hard pushed to get her eldest daughter near a sewing machine even if she’d bribed her with a stack of gold coins. Ginny had been a lot more interested, but for some reason even she had stepped back along the way.
Loretta watchedDaisy ring up the man’s order on the till and she smiled over at him when he put the pair of burgundy knitted gloves on straight away.
‘I’m ready to tackle a Butterbury winter now!’ he declared with a flourish before he left.
Daisy put the other gloves he’d tried on back on display and Loretta watched her. She’d been such a troubled teen, the only one of the three who really ever had, and Lorettahad never known why. She’s assumed it was what it was and had simply tried to be there for her daughter. What she never would’ve predicted was Daisy’s decision to stay here with her in the Butterbury Sewing Box rather than further her studies in a totally different direction. But when she was old enough, that was what she had done. Her sisters had begun to follow their own paths, their dad wasgone, and Loretta just assumed her youngest daughter was doing what made her the happiest. And with so much upset over the years, Loretta hadn’t thought it her place to question it.
With Daisy quiet once again at the other end of the shop, replenishing shelves, Loretta assumed, Loretta stocked up the baskets of mixed wool near the front door. She pushed in leftovers from bigger batches that wouldsell cheaper because the shades wouldn’t quite match what they had in stock now, but they’d be perfect to pull together a brightly coloured blanket, a tea cosy – unbelievably some people still used those – or a crazy knit jumper for the more adventurous. She put the last of the chocolate-brown wool onto the shelf stack near the window and straightened the pole that had rainbow-decorated fabricdraped over it. The poles of material were horizontal rather than vertical, allowing customers to flip through the selection easily. But customers didn’t always leave the fabric straight and a good tidy up was always on the agenda. Loretta was third generation Rawlins – she became a Chamberlain once she married – to take the helm at the Butterbury Sewing Box and Daisy might laugh at her high standardsand fastidiousness when it came to keeping the shop clean and well-presented, but in the not-too-distant future Daisy would be the one in charge, she’d be the boss for the fourth generation in a row and Loretta felt a spark of joy that her Grandma Eve’s legacy would continue. All she needed now was to make sure Daisy’s head was really still in the game because these days she worried that itwas anything but.
Loretta found Daisy at the end of the shop, but she wasn’t filling the shelves as Loretta had assumed. She was engrossed in something on her phone yet again.
‘Don’t worry,’ Daisy quickly leaped in, ‘the stock is already replenished, I’m not shirking my responsibilities.’
‘I never said you were.’ But she was up to something.
‘You’re so suspicious, Mum.’ The eye roll that camewith it told Loretta she’d get nothing else out of her daughter as she shoved her phone back into the pocket of her jeans. But Loretta didn’t miss a mischievous smile. Either she was up to no good or there was a man on the other end of that text message or whatever contact she’d just got. And that, Loretta supposed, would be a good thing. Daisy hadn’t seemed interested in having much of a lovelife lately and it made Loretta sad to think her daughter was missing her younger years when she should be out and having fun, and might even be lonely. Daisy had never said as much but she was forever going off alone camping, something she and Harry had often done together, or to photograph things – the countryside, local events, scenery at a new camping ground. And it was one thing for Lorettato be on her own when she was in her sixties, but it was quite another for Daisy to be doing the same thing at her age.
Daisy was alerted to movement outside the shop. ‘They’re early.’
Loretta spotted the minibus from Butterbury Lodge that had just pulled up. ‘Don’t panic, it’ll take them a good five minutes to disembark.’
‘I’ll run and put the heater on upstairs, get the room nice and toasty.’
Loretta greeted the seven arrivals at the door and, as predicted, it took them a while to get out of the minibus and file inside.
‘We’re here!’ It was Flo, one of the residents at the lodge, and for a woman who had once kept herself to herself, she seemed to be in charge of everyone else. She was first inside the shop and as Loretta embraced her father, announced, ‘We’ve got a name, you know.For our group.’
Loretta finished ushering everyone inside out of the cold.
‘Don’t you want to know what it is?’ Flo went on as Daisy reappeared, bypassed everyone to give her grandad an enormous hug, and then resumed professionalism by offering to take coats. She was soon weighed down with an armful, laughing from behind the material and insisting she run those upstairs before anyone handedher anything else.
‘Tell me, Flo,’ said Loretta as she gathered the remaining coats and scarves. She gave her dad another hug, noticing he was wearing the chocolate brown jumper he’d knitted himself.
Flo’s eyes danced. ‘We’re calling ourselves Oldies in Stitches.’
Loretta laughed as she handed Daisy everything in her arms and her daughter took the rest of the garments upstairs. ‘Good for youand very appropriate.’
Maggie, the staff member who’d driven the minibus, came back inside armed with a box. ‘The knitting projects they’ve been working on are all inside.’ She leaned in and whispered to Loretta, ‘Make sure their chairs are far enough apart, knitting needles tend to get waved around in all the excitement and I don’t want any injuries.’ Maggie seemed to deal with residents witha tireless efficiency and missed nothing with sharp eyes behind rounded spectacles. She’d been in charge at the lodge for years and seemed well-versed at keeping things in order but with an injection of fun that many of these elderly residents so desperately needed, especially those who didn’t have a family network visiting regularly.
‘They’ll be fine with us.’ Loretta smiled, although it wasDaisy taking charge leading the way upstairs with Ivor at the rear, jostling everyone into place. He’d volunteered to help with the basic knitting skills workshop and had already got everyone off to a flying start up at the lodge apparently.
