The Wardrobe Mistress_A heart-wrenching wartime love story

by Natalie Meg Evans

A dead one. Joanne clearly hadn’t heard the news about Wilton Bovary. Staring out across a dark pelt of grass to where the concrete runways reflected the rising moon, Vanessa smelled the heady cocktail of moorland heather, sea salt and aviation fumes. Would she miss this place? Or just the friends? ‘Is it easy to get a job in theatre?’

  Joanne laughed. ‘Are you burning to act?’

  ‘Not a bit. I’d want to be behind the scenes.’

  ‘You could get work as an ASM, Assistant Stage Manager. Lousy pay. Don’t you want to go back to your studies?’

  ‘No. What pays better?’

  Joanne exhaled a stream of smoke. She was moving her hips because the band was playing again. Any moment they’d re-join the dancing. ‘If you claimed your widow’s pension, low pay wouldn’t matter so much. Why don’t you?’

  ‘I can’t. It’s complicated . . . what other jobs are there, ones I could live on?’

  ‘Props, lighting, set design, though those can be very “jobs for the boys”. There are women scene painters. Yes,’ Joanne peered at Vanessa, as if struck, ‘I can see you daubing away in a pair of natty overalls, up a ladder. It would have to be a long ladder.’

  ‘Scenery . . . right.’ It wasn’t ringing bells for her. ‘How would I start?’

  ‘I’m joking! You’re an educated woman. Go back to art school, finish your degree. Then at least you could teach. Theatre’s so precarious; you can easily spend thirty weeks out of fifty-two not being paid. I see you teaching in a nice girls’ school, with a regular salary and a pension attached.’

  ‘How odd. I can’t. What about –’ Vanessa prepared for Joanne to laugh – ‘theatre costume? Wardrobe.’

  Joanne looked dubious. ‘Trouble with Wardrobe Mistresses, they die in harness. Or when they finally retire, they hand their jobs on to their daughters or nieces. It’s deeply nepotistic . . . is that a word? Though I know you can wield a needle, because I’m wearing the parachute-silk knickers you made me.’

  ‘My mother says I’m a terrible seamstress. But she judges me on things I made at infant school. It was always me who put the costumes together for school plays and carol services.’

  ‘If you’re serious, start writing letters, because all the old theatre hands will be demobbing soon and you’ll get knocked down in the rush.’

  ‘I am serious . . . My dad dying the way he did— Joanne?’ But her friend had gone away to dance. Vanessa followed, looking for Finn. As she went, she touched a cord around her neck, looped through the head of a golden key. Something told her that whatever it unlocked lay in a small, hard-to-find London theatre. Which, by hell or high water, she’d revisit some day.

  On Joanne’s advice, she took out a subscription to The Stage, the newsprint bible of the theatre industry. She was prepared to grab the lowliest opportunity to get her foot in the door.

  High summer arrived, and with her demobilisation date set for autumn, she scanned ads for a position in wardrobe. Whenever one jumped out, she wrote, enclosing a reference from her commanding officer.

  It was a failure. Mail travelled so slowly, the jobs were filled by the time she made contact with whoever was recruiting. She called those theatres that included a telephone number in their ads, telling herself that if she could survive an air attack, she could survive a chat with a brusque manager. One after another, they dashed her hopes. They all wanted someone with ‘credible experience’. That meant at least one season as a professional, paid wardrobe mistress. On one occasion, as she described running up costumes for school plays, the man at the other end laughed. ‘Didn’t we all, darling. Try am-dram.’

  She had to ask Joanne what that meant.

  ‘Amateur dramatics. Nessie, are you sure you want to put yourself through this?’

  The short Scottish summer passed, and on September 3rd, 1945, Vanessa became a civilian again, six years to the day since war was declared. She returned to Kent with her discharge papers, a suitcase containing items of uniform she’d been allowed to keep and a small wad of clothing coupons, courtesy of a grateful government. Rather than sign on to the unemployment register, she became personal secretary to Lord Stanshurst, her dad’s former employer. His Lordship’s late wife had employed Vanessa’s mother for many years. The Quinnells had occupied a grace-and-favour house within Stanshurst Park, until Johnny’s defection. It was almost too much history, and Vanessa’s throat became inflamed the day she took up her new job, as if at some level, she’d assumed the collar of servitude.

  And it was dull work, letter writing and administering his Lordship’s much-diminished payroll. Her predecessor, recently retired Mrs Mancroft, had run the estate office in a state of inspired muddle. She’d left no instructions or briefing notes and for the first month, Vanessa waded through files until her eyes swam. At least she had a typewriter at her disposal, and plenty of good-quality pre-war paper. On quiet afternoons, she’d write application letters to London theatres. Once, she wrote directly to The Farren, using the address on her father’s playbill, offering herself in any backstage capacity they might require. For that letter, she used her maiden name, thinking ‘Quinnell’ might chime with somebody and improve her chances.

  Within a few days, she received a reply: ‘Thank you for your letter, which has been placed in our files. We regret that The Farren is closed and there are no immediate prospects of its reopening.’

  It was signed ‘Miss B Bovary’.

  Her mother was pleased to have her home. Not because Ruth particularly enjoyed her daughter’s company – Peach Cottage was so tiny, they couldn’t help but intrude on each other – but because it gave her a window into Stanshurst Hall. Ruth Quinnell had been Lady Stanshurst’s social secretary. She still referred to ‘My Lady’ as if her late employer were eavesdropping from the next room and not buried in the family mausoleum. At each day’s end, Ruth greeted Vanessa with, ‘Who did you write to today? Did you speak with his Lordship?’

  Something in the way Ruth said ‘His Lordship’ hinted at admiration. Adulation, even.

  Lord Stanshurst was overwhelmed by debt. During hostilities, his home had been commandeered for use by the RAF’s School of Navigation, and had been handed back bearing the scars of occupation. He had no money to make repairs, and was crushed by the idea that after his death, he would leave his son a bankrupt title.

  The election of a Labour government in July had knocked a final nail into the coffin of his world. ‘It’ll be a life of taxation with only death duties to look forward to,’ he told Vanessa one afternoon. It was by now November, and the absence of central heating at the Hall had turned from a mild joke into a danger to health. For days now, Vanessa had been typing in woollen gloves with cut-off fingers. Finally, unable to concentrate, she’d lugged her typewriter down to the kitchen, dragging the table close to the coal-fired range which was the only reliable source of heat. Lord Stanshurst came down in search of a cup of tea and Vanessa made a pot for them both.

  He drank his leaning against the range. He was a lanky man in worn but bombproof tweed. ‘Chris should be here, lending a hand,’ he complained. ‘Not hanging about in Paris.’ His son, Christopher, had been a prisoner of war in Germany but instead of coming home on his release, he’d accepted a post with the British Embassy helping to process British citizens making their way back from various corners of Europe and North Africa. ‘Apparently every lost soul heads for Paris. A sort of homing instinct.’ Lord Stanshurst shook his head in bewilderment. ‘And poor Fern . . . Did you know, her husband has moved out of their home and is quitting the Navy?’

  ‘No, sir.’ Despite the difference in their education and social status, Vanessa and Fern had been great friends throughout their childhood. Lady Stanhurst, Fern’s mother, had encouraged the friendship, declaring that ‘little Nessie’ brought out her headstrong daughter’s kinder side. Vanessa’s departure to art college and Fern’s to a Swiss finishing school had separated them but they’d met again after Vanessa was posted to Biggin Hill. At the time,
Fern had been escorting evacuee children from London into rural Kent. Several of them had ended up at the Hall.

  ‘I never met Fern’s husband,’ Vanessa said. ‘When you say “moved out” . . . ?’

  ‘Quit. Packed his bag. I wish her mother were still here.’

  ‘Wasn’t it Lady Stanshurst who introduced Fern to her husband?’

  ‘In Malta, yes. Margery liked to match people, but I’m not sure that marriage was her finest hour. Still, she’d have got the two of them together for peace-talks and there’d have been no scandal.’ Lord Stanshurst stared hard at Vanessa. When a tear slipped down his cheek, she realised he was giving way to emotion. She pretended to type so he wouldn’t know she’d noticed.

  ‘Perhaps they’ll see sense,’ she said bracingly. ‘Give them time to adjust to each other.’

  ‘Everything’s crumbling. Manners, tradition . . . Redenhall, leaving my daughter. I can only suppose the Monarda business did something to his brains. Having his first ship torpedoed under him couldn’t have helped either. The Sundew sank in under twelve minutes, he told me.’

  ‘Sundew?’

  ‘His corvette. Blown up by a U-boat in ’42, all hands drowned bar a dozen. Fern thought it might put the brakes on his promotion, but they gave him a new command within weeks. A destroyer, HMS Quarrel. Who thinks up these names? A blessed bad omen.’

  Vanessa’s fingers stilled on the keyboard. Comprehension arrived in formation, several thoughts at once. Her sea captain had been on his way back to board the Quarrel at Pier Head. There couldn’t be two ships with the same name. She knew that Fern had married a sailor in Malta. ‘He’s strong and doesn’t smile much,’ she’d written to Vanessa after the wedding. ‘We’re setting up house near St James’ Park. Smart, no?’

  ‘Heaven help me, I think I’ve fallen for my oldest friend’s husband,’ Vanessa whispered as Lord Stanshurst noisily swallowed his tea, oblivious. ‘But now I know, I can avoid him.’ Then it burst on her. He’d survived the last weeks of war. Alive. And that was wonderful.

  Vanessa applied for theatre jobs up until Christmas 1945 but Joanne’s prediction had been spot on. Thousands of former theatre employees had left the services and were competing to get back into an industry that was struggling in an atmosphere of rationing and gloom.

  The year turned. 1946 arrived.

  As the snow melted on the Kentish Weald, Vanessa took solitary walks and whenever she was a mile clear of the nearest habitation, she’d scream into the sky, ‘Let me live the life I’m supposed to be living!’

  She needn’t have worried. Becalmed existences always start moving eventually.

  Lord Stanshurst inadvertently put the wheels in motion by writing to his daughter and son-in-law separately, inviting them to Kent to give their marriage another go. ‘There has never been a divorce in this family.’ He heard nothing from either at first. Fern was currently in Paris, ‘resting’. Commander Redenhall was serving out his time in the Navy, on Baltic patrol, captaining a sister ship to the Quarrel.

  To Vanessa, Lord Stanshurst expressed disbelief that Redenhall was leaving the services. ‘I had him down as a career sailor.’

  It was late summer before Lord Stanshurst’s invitation was accepted by both parties. On August 14th, Alistair cabled that he’d be at Stanshurst by the 20th. Fern arrived a day earlier, bursting into Vanessa’s office, her coppery hair falling in curls over her shoulders.

  ‘Darling Vanessa, Pops told me you were here. Some sanity at last! Poor Mrs Mancroft would have signed her own execution order if someone had put it in front of her. Oh, I was so sorry to hear of your dad, by the way. Did you get my card?’

  ‘’Fraid not, but thanks.’

  ‘Bloody post. Shall we run through the orchard together, like old times?’

  ‘The orchard’s full of wasps raiding the fruit.’

  ‘Ugh. Like life! I can’t tell you how much I’m dreading these next few days. I suppose Pops has told you, Alistair and I are estranged. Isn’t estranged a ghastly word?’

  Vanessa observed her old friend closely. She saw a chic outfit. A coiffeur charmingly ruffled from a long journey. Meticulous makeup and professionally shaped brows framed hazel eyes that showed no trace of recent tears. Fern was like her father, putting on a good face for the world.

  Vanessa thought, I owe her whatever comfort I can give. In the days following Vanessa’s widowhood, Fern had called at Peach Cottage. Rather than sit with Ruth fussing over her, she’d dragged Vanessa out for a walk. Once clear of the village, she’d said, ‘Nothing shocks me except for cruelty to animals and dirty nails. If you want to talk, my ears are at your service.’ For a mile or two, Vanessa had said little. But, encouraged by Fern’s silence, a dam had broken, and things she’d hardly admitted to herself poured out. Fern had listened without passing judgement.

  It would require finesse, supporting Fern while avoiding Fern’s husband. Vanessa cringed, imagining Alistair Redenhall’s reaction should he discover that she was a spectator at yet another harrowing moment of his life.

  Fern fanned herself with her kidskin gloves. ‘This heat! I’m going outside. Join me.’

  ‘I’ll just finish off.’

  She found Fern on the loggia, pulling weeds from between cracks in the paving stones. It was wiltingly hot out here as well, and Vanessa suggested they try the woods bordering the park.

  Chapter 6

  As they walked through Hunter’s Copse, a patch of ancient woodland bursting with dog violets and honeysuckle, Vanessa expressed her long-stored gratitude. ‘You gave me my life back, Fern.’

  ‘After your husband died? No doubt I was the only person who didn’t say, “Pick your chin up, Kingcourt, and press on!” I never have done “stiff upper lip” very well. I know the healing power of letting it all blub out.’

  ‘I did blub, didn’t I? I couldn’t cope with the fact that I’d lost Leo in the blink of an eye. But that wasn’t the first time you came to my rescue. After my dad left, my mother went to pieces and my Aunt Brenda came to stay.’

  ‘I remember her.’ Fern exaggerated a shudder.

  ‘Whenever I asked for Daddy, she’d tell me I was naughty little girl, plaguing my mother. The village children snickered; their mothers stared. I felt utterly bewildered, abandoned, and I stopped speaking. If you hadn’t called round and asked, “Can Vanessa come out to play, please?” I’m not sure I’d ever have said another word.’

  Fern made a self-deprecating gesture. ‘I heard your silence was because they’d botched your tonsil operation.’

  ‘No. I stopped talking because I thought Daddy leaving was my fault.’

  ‘How could it be? You were five.’

  ‘I was just six.’

  ‘So grown up!’ Fern draped her arms over a low bough, fixing Vanessa with cynical humour. ‘Marriages are not made in heaven, they’re made by well-meaning amateurs and some break sooner than others. My parents bamboozled a show of phony happiness for years.’

  ‘I thought they adored each other!’ Vanessa could still picture Lord Stanshurst watching Lady Stanshurst riding out to join the local meet on a raking hunter, murmuring, ‘Best horsewoman the London stage ever produced,’ a reference to his wife’s time as a West End actress before her marriage. ‘I thought your parents adored each other,’ she said. True, she’d heard hints over the years that Lady Stanshurst’s passions and foibles clashed with the customs of rustic aristocracy, and that in marrying her, his Lordship had allowed love to cloud wisdom. But if their happiness had been a fake, then it had been a good fake.

  Yet Fern seemed to be saying exactly that.

  ‘I dare say it started well enough.’ Fern tipped her mouth wryly. ‘But once my brother and I were away at school, their marriage became a polite dance, and I doubt she and Pops spent more than a month in each other’s company in any year. Marge would go to London or up to our Scottish estate at every opportunity. Or to Malta, which suited her best. Malta is out of gossips’ range, d’you see
? What do parents like yours do, stuck in one home?’

  ‘Endure. Or split. Did you always call your mother “Marge”?’

  ‘I started off calling her ‘Miss Bowers’. Her stage name was Margery Bowers, but it upset her because she missed the stage so badly. We settled on “Marge”, which amused her. Actually, it was her lover’s idea.’

  ‘She had a lover?’

  ‘Oh, listen to that song thrush! I love this wood. I love Stanshurst, never more so than now when it’s so fragile.’

  Vanessa wanted to ask, Must every good memory crumble? but Fern’s revelations made that seem insensitive, so she murmured instead, ‘Things change without our permission.’

  ‘New beginnings.’ Fern sighed. ‘How I long for them! But to have a new beginning you have to crash through the inevitable ending.’

  She reached for a springy branch. Tall, with the curves of a long-pattern violin, she’d reached a new level of beauty since Vanessa had last seen her. The elder by three years, but miles ahead in sophistication. Her complexion defied the privations of a ration-card diet, while her eyes reflected the greenery around her. So many boyfriends had clustered about Fern, Lord Stanshurst had joked about charging a fee to receive them. Her choice of a naval sub-lieutenant from an untitled, northern family had shocked some.

  Vanessa had heard that at the wedding reception, Lord Stanshurst had announced his certainty that his son-in-law would one day be ‘Admiral Sir Alistair Redenhall’. Not now, he wouldn’t be. Vanessa couldn’t imagine Redenhall in anything but uniform, but then, she shouldn’t be imagining him at all. ‘You will give things another go, won’t you, Fern? After what your husband’s been through, he deserves another chance.’

  Black-tipped ash pinged and wagged as Fern let go of her branch. A smile crept to her lips, which were painted a terracotta shade. ‘Did you enjoy being a WAAF? I never quite knew what you did. I know it was Signals.’

  ‘Changing the subject? I was one of the golden-voiced lovelies who kept radio contact with pilots or their wireless ops while they were flying. If they were in trouble, we’d guide them home.’