7:10 a.m. — The Attic Room in Lambeth 🔍

At ten minutes past seven in my attic room above Walnut Court, I struck a match, lit the small spirit lamp, and warmed yesterday’s tea in a blackened tin pot. I washed at the china basin with water carried up the night before, then pinned my hair beneath a plain straw hat while rain silvered the roofs beyond the glass. My breakfast was bread spread thinly with dripping, eaten beside the ticking mantel clock as I counted three pennies and two halfpennies in my purse. I put on my brown wool skirt, high-collared cotton blouse, and mended boots, wrapping my work apron and thimble in a clean handkerchief. By the time I descended the steep stairs, the landlady was shaking ashes from the kitchen grate, and the whole passage smelled of coal smoke and onions.

12:35 p.m. — Miss Elwick’s Dressmaking Room 🔍

At twenty-five minutes to one in Miss Elwick’s second-floor workroom off Westminster Bridge Road, I bent over a dark green walking dress while rain-muted daylight fell through the tall, dusty panes. Six of us stitched shoulder to shoulder at the long table, our needles clicking softly between the heavier thumps of the treadle machine. My task was to set black braid along the bodice without puckering the cloth, and the waxed thread drew a faint line across my forefinger. At dinner pause I ate a cold meat pasty from brown paper and shared the last of my tea with Clara, who promised to show me a cheaper room near her aunt’s house. A horse omnibus groaned below, and whenever its door opened I heard the conductor’s call mingle with the hiss of wheels on the wet road. Before we resumed, I secretly unpicked the crooked inch that had troubled me all morning and laid it straight at last.

7:20 p.m. — Walnut Court and the Scullery 🔍

At twenty minutes past seven in the covered passage of Walnut Court, I stopped beneath the dripping eaves to buy a pennyworth of small purple plums from a barrow lit by the mild glow of a paraffin lamp. The rain had thinned to mist, leaving the brick walls dark and the gutters whispering. In the lodging-house scullery I scrubbed the day’s black marks from my cuffs, then ate two plums over the sink so their juice would not stain the tablecloth. Mrs. Bell let me sit near the kitchen range, where I darned the worn heel of my stocking while she turned potatoes in a chipped blue bowl. I told her that Clara might know of a quieter room, but the thought of moving on my very first day made the strange city seem larger rather than smaller. At nine, I climbed back to the attic with one candle stub, four plums, and the comforting certainty that my hands had done honest work.