‘I’ll just show you,’ she said, pointing over my shoulder. ‘See, this is your straight switch and your zigzag switch. This is your speed – I keep it on six. And this is your reverse, for finishing off. The treadle’s quite sensitive so you need a gentle foot.’

Once I ignored all the extra buttons and switches, it wasn’t that different from Gemma’s. I had a quick practice on some calico (‘Gentle foot!’), and then I was ready to try the dress; but the bumpy broderie was a trickier proposition, and almost as soon as I had begun it did exactly what my mother had predicted: some part of the cutwork got caught on the needle, and the fabric was drawn up rapidly into a scrunch.

My mother, who had been pretending to read the paper across the kitchen, instantly reappeared at my side. ‘Yes, that’s what it tends to do,’ she said. ‘Broderie can be quite difficult to work with. I was worried about that.’ She handed me a little tool for cutting stitches. It took me ten minutes to unpick the ravelled threads. ‘Shall we have another try?’ she said, when she saw me smooth it out at last. ‘I could help. It’s no bother. I’ve finished what I wanted to do.’

‘No thank you,’ I said. ‘I’ll do it.’

‘I’m just worried that the mistakes are going to start showing soon. I know it’s forgiving, the broderie, but probably only up to a certain point. And you’ve chosen quite a difficult pattern. Do you want me to try?’

I didn’t answer. She stood for a moment behind me – I could feel her impatience build – and then she left the kitchen without another word. I sighed heavily: my breath steamed the chrome panel of the Singer’s nameplate. The long needle gleamed, poised to descend, and the broderie lay pooled beneath it where I had lined it up to try again. The kitchen was quiet now she had gone, but I didn’t move. I was afraid that I was going to ruin the dress, and afraid that I no longer cared – that, no matter how the dress turned out, I had tainted it by breaking the seal on my secret. The clock ticked loudly on the wall above the sink. I heard drawers opening and closing in another room and then I heard my mother’s footsteps returning.

‘This is the only other broderie I’ve got,’ she said, in a put-upon voice, as if I had asked her to fetch it. She was out of breath. A garment appeared at my elbow, folded: white broderie anglaise, turning creamy with age. Some kind of old baby’s gown. ‘You can practise with it, if you want. It doesn’t matter. I don’t want you ruining your dress.’

‘What is it?’ I asked. It looked delicate and sentimental.