Gin Palace Girl by Gracie Hart

Author:Gracie Hart [Hart, Gracie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473567429
Publisher: Ebury Publishing

Chapter 12

Mary looked around what was now her new home. She was three storeys up in the Palace Hotel, on the same landing as most of the resident staff, but she had one of the larger bedrooms and the luxury of a double bed, which she had found to be comfortable after her first night in the hotel. The whole room was luxurious compared to Riley’s Court; she had a dressing table, a wardrobe and a washstand, and a shared bathroom at the end of the hallway with hot and cold water, something she had only ever dreamed of.

She was blessed, she thought, as she looked around and then went to the window to pull back the curtains and look down onto the busy Headrow that ran through the centre of Leeds. There, she could see horses and carts and cabs making their way back and forward while people hurried about their business and stopped and talked to one another. She’d never be short of something to watch, she thought, as she went over to the wardrobe and opened the doors. Within it was the one thing that Mary was not happy about as she stood in her vest and bloomers …

Along with her new position and room had come the responsibility of dressing the part and she had been sent to see Madame Boulevard at Sharp and Wright’s, the dressmakers with whom the Winfields had an account and who had measured her up for four delightful new dresses to wear while working. The dresses were beautiful; all four were delicate and ornately decorated with lace, sequin and fake pearls that caught the light and shimmered as she walked. It was what she had to wear under the dress that she hated – a corset that pulled her waist in and made it very hard to breathe. She hated it, but all the ladies of fashion were wearing it, seemingly, so she must do the same. She’d been able to stand her ground a little and insist that she would have a front-laced corset, rather than have to ask the assistance of a maid every morning to pull her laces tight up her back, but now, as she fit the corset around her body and started to lace herself up tightly, binding the tops of her hips and squeezing her waist into the smallest shape yet, she was near to the point of swearing. There was something to be said for being an ordinary working-class lass who didn’t need such finery. How was she to go about her work, trussed up like a goose at Christmas, she wondered when she finally secured the ribbons tight and looked at herself in the mirror. If God had meant to make women that shape he would have done so in the first place, she thought, as she slipped the dress of her choice over her shoulders and struggled to button it up without the aid of a maid.

It had taken her half an

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