The curtain was pinned but not sewn. Its maker died before collection, leaving a label with a surname nobody in the family recognized. Apprentice Eda checked the order book and found a window sketch sent through the post.
The customer lived above Pass End and could not visit easily. The seamstress had asked for three measurements, then added a fourth question: how low should the morning light fall? The reply described a chair beside the window and a husband who liked to read there.
Eda contacted the customer before finishing the work. The husband had since died, and the chair had moved. They agreed on a different hem rather than treating the last recorded measurement as an instruction that could not change.
Eda kept the original label with the completed order record. Her teacher's work continued through a fresh conversation with the person who would use it. The curtain finally hung in the intended room, but its length belonged to the room's present life rather than to a moment preserved only because the person measuring it had been the first to leave.