The Wardrobe Mistress_A heart-wrenching wartime love story

by Natalie Meg Evans

The late-comer was a slim young man dressed in loose trousers. His slightly too-small jacket was fastened with a single button. It looked like thrown-on jumble salvage until he came more into the light, when it became evident that the ‘impoverished loafer’ effect was intentional. Only a red cravat around his throat and a brown beret set at the same rake as Vanessa’s showed any substantial wear. Close-cut dark hair framed a face of beautiful structure.

  ‘Sit down,’ Alistair told him.

  Long-lashed eyes regarded Alistair with reproach. ‘Do throw me a life-belt, Captain.’ A soft, Irish accent made the provocative comment somehow musical.

  Though not to Alistair’s ears. ‘As you inferred, there are no excuses for being late on the first morning. You are?’

  ‘Hugo Brennan. Production Designer. Where shall I sit?’

  The only seat going spare was the one Tom Cottrill would have occupied had he not chosen to stand. Brennan was making for it when one of the burly flymen picked it up, plonked it down beside Vanessa, and tramped back to his own seat. The action said clearly, ‘You’re with the girls, matey.’

  ‘Why, thank you.’ Sitting down, crossing his long legs, Brennan whispered to Vanessa, ‘Everything about you shouts “wardrobe”. Thought they were going to appoint a man.’

  ‘Shush!’

  ‘Don’t you snub me, too. We must be in tight cahoots, darling. With all these sailors around, a person could get violently seasick. How are you with corsetry?’

  ‘Can we discuss it later?’

  ‘Straight or swan-bill, what’s your preference?’

  Alistair cleared his throat. Brennan shifted his gaze frontwards, the eager innocent, giving the impression that it was Vanessa who’d been gossiping.

  Alistair went on, ‘Should any of you find yourselves overwhelmed, talk to your supervisor, and if you are the supervisor, talk to me. I am Theatre and Company Manager, in charge of the daily grind. I’m also a co-producer. For those of you who don’t know what that means, I’ll be managing the finance.’

  ‘Busy, busy,’ Brennan murmured.

  ‘But I won’t be casting the play, so don’t send your nieces, sisters, or sweethearts to me in the hope they’ll get acting roles. Call me Redenhall, or Alistair, if you prefer. Not “sir” unless you really can’t help yourself. Never “Captain”. Should you ever meet me on board ship, you may call me “Commander”, that being my rank. In this place, however, we leave ranks behind. Fine with that, Brennan?’

  ‘Perfectly understood, and do call me Hugo.’

  A hostile buzz rose, an intimation that these men had tastes and opinions, and not all of them liberal. Brennan needs to wind in his sails, Vanessa thought. And what the hell is a swan-bill when it’s not on a swan?

  ‘Here’s the bit you all want to know.’ Alistair shifted his hands on the chair. ‘Rehearsals start October 1st and by then, the play will be cast. The director arrives at the end of this month, giving you, Brennan, a shave under two weeks to collaborate with Wardrobe and Scenery on your designs. For everyone else, there’s plenty to do getting backstage in trim. As some of you already know, the play we’re kicking off with is – ’

  ‘You have begun without us!’ A female figure was proceeding down the aisle from the back of the auditorium. She walked with long steps. A second woman waddled in her wake, indicating she found downhill progress difficult in heels. A third and fourth figure brought up the rear.

  Walking to the lip of the stage, Alistair shielded his eyes. ‘Miss Bovary, is that you? Mrs Rolf? This is a meeting for design, technical and stage crew.’

  The first voice demanded, ‘Why weren’t we informed?’

  ‘Because it’s none of your concern.’

  ‘On the contrary, Commander Redenhall. It is my right to be informed of all activities affecting this theatre.’

  ‘That’s not how it works under me, Miss Bovary. But since you’re here, come and join us.’ Alistair opened the pass door beside the prompt box. Vanessa heard him exclaim, ‘Have we got a coach party? Who else is there?’

  Miss Bovary returned, ‘My brother-in-law, Mr Rolf, and my nephew Edwin.’

  ‘Ask Edwin to go. Doyle can show him to the nearest Lyons Corner House.’

  ‘There is no call to exclude Edwin,’ a reedy, male voice objected. ‘Need I remind you that The Farren has been in the hands of the Bovary family for two generations?’

  ‘And now it belongs to me, Mr Rolf. Edwin,’ Alistair’s tone was crisp, but not unkind, ‘get lost.’

  ‘Well, that’s blunt, Redenhall.’ The answer came with a sneer. ‘Remember Icarus who flew too high? His waxen feathers melted in the sun’s heat. Father, you can pick me up at my club.’ Moments later, the auditorium door clicked shut, silencing the off-hand laughter that accompanied Edwin Bovary’s exit.

  Alistair sent two stage crew to find more chairs. They came back with the sofa left over from The Importance, which had been stored in the backstage corridor. Once Mr Rolf had dusted it and fussily arranged the panels of his overcoat, he and the ladies settled themselves. Alistair introduced them. ‘Miss Bovary, the late Wilton Bovary’s sister and our administrator. She works with contracts, promotions and accounts. Along with Mr and Mrs Rolf, she is a minor shareholder of Farren Theatre Ltd, the company that will produce our repertoire. Mr Terence Rolf also runs a production company, Rolf Associates. He is casting and raising investment for us.’

  ‘No money, no theatre.’ Miss Bovary gave Alistair an emphatic stare. The stare fell next on Vanessa.

  Ah, Vanessa thought. She’s the one who doesn’t like Wardrobe Mistresses. Thinks they live too long, or something.

  In a grey dress, a strip of lace encircling a wrung-out throat, Miss Bovary offered an advertisement for over-preserved virginity. After staring at every human in turn, she aimed her disgust at Macduff. ‘Who allowed that dog on stage?’

  ‘Still knows how to charm,’ Hugo breathed.

  ‘You know her?’

  ‘Her late brother gave me my first job as a scenery painter. I daubed my way up the ranks, a rising star in set design, and finally pulled off a triumph in a competing theatre. Bo wished me luck. They never forgave me.’ Hugo nodded to indicate the sisters and Terence Rolf. ‘These days, of course, we’re all dim twinkles in an egalitarian sky. All starting anew. Just that some of us don’t realise it.’

  ‘So what’s the play to be, sir?’ someone called out.

  Alistair’s reply was drowned by an ear-rending sound. Macduff was howling at the sofa’s occupants. Nothing could induce him to stop, and Alistair closed the meeting.

  As people prepared to go, Terence Rolf announced above Macduff’s dirge that the play was one of his ‘late, sorely-missed brother-in-law’s favourites, Lady Windermere’s Fan.’ Wilton Bovary had planned to put it on in 1939, only to be thwarted by the closure of theatres during the war. ‘Our tribute to him will be its revival.’

  The call to nostalgia fell flat. Nobody present had worked under Wilton Bovary. Nobody had warm memories to cradle. Terence Rolf was undeterred. Three talented stars had agreed to play the lead roles, he bellowed, which would pull in the critics and public alike. Put off by Macduff’s unrelenting vocals, he stuttered on the word ‘stars’. A man near Vanessa repeated, ‘Three talented tarts? Things are looking up.’

  Alistair offered Macduff a cream cracker from his pocket and the howling waned, like the dying notes of a siren. Taking out a ten-shilling note, he beckoned Tanith Stacey to his side, and asked her to take the dog to an eating house on Long Acre called Frimley’s. ‘He has eel pie and liquor.’

  ‘Liquor?’ Tanith echoed. ‘Alcohol?’

  ‘Eel juice; he loves it. Have some yourself.’

  Tanith called to Vanessa, ‘Fancy it?’

  Vanessa was longing to get back to her room, to take full ownership of her new workspace. Something in Miss Bovary’s stare had made her feel she needed to make her mark, quickly. If Tanith could wait a while . . .

  Alistair overruled, sayin
g, ‘I want Vanessa with me.’ He summoned her and added quietly, ‘I need your powers of observation for the next hour or so.’

  A select group retired to Miss Bovary’s office. Long and narrow like Alistair’s, she shared hers with Mr Amery, Head of Promotions. He was out today.

  The first thing Vanessa noticed was the framed stills on the walls, so many that the green silk wallpaper was visible only in patches. There were stills of Sleeping Beauty, featuring one fairy in black and another in silver-lilac. Between them, a man in royal robes. The caption read, ‘Silv, Bo and Babs. A family affair, Christmas 1925.’

  Behind her, Alistair asked, ‘Can you tell which is Miss Bovary?’

  The Bad Fairy, of course. She didn’t say it out loud, but Alistair guessed anyway and laughed.

  ‘Miss Bovary played the Lilac Fairy. She was the more beautiful, but both sisters were famous for their trapeze stunts.’ Seeing her expression, he laughed. ‘We all have a past, Vanessa.’

  Miss Bovary swept up to them and Vanessa thought she was going to comment on the photograph, but she pointed to the door, informing Vanessa, ‘Tea things are in the office marked “Records”. Fresh milk is in the cold box. The jar containing sugar is my personal ration, but you may give some to Commander Redenhall and Mr Rolf. I take one level spoonful.’

  ‘I don’t need sugar,’ Alistair said. ‘And why are you sending Mrs Kingcourt to make the tea?’

  ‘I don’t mind,’ Vanessa said, deciding that cooperation was the best course, to be followed later by a show of firmness.

  Hugo offered to help. ‘Come on, we’ll let the grown-ups talk about us for a bit.’

  The records room was little more than a glorified store-room, a cold-box and a spirit kettle crammed on a shelf. Vanessa pointed to the kettle, asking Hugo, ‘Where do we fill that?’

  ‘From the tap in the gents’. I’ll take it.’

  Left alone, she took her bearings. There were two filing cabinets in the room, four drawers deep, each identified by letters of the alphabet. She went straight to the drawer labelled N-O-P-Q but it was locked.

  ‘You’ll find me under “B”.’

  ‘Hugo! You nearly gave me a seizure.’

  ‘You haven’t laid the tea tray. Some slave-girl you are.’ Hugo squeezed past her and lit the spirit stove.

  ‘What’s in those cabinets?’

  ‘Why do you want to know?’

  She gave Hugo a silent appraisal, yielding to the impulse to trust him. ‘My dad acted here, and I want to learn everything I can about him.’

  ‘Name of?’

  ‘Clive Quinnell.’

  Hugo reached into the cold-box for the milk. He brought out a set of keys along with the jug. ‘I knew a Johnny Quinnell.’

  ‘That’s him.’

  He gave her the keys. ‘This is what you need. Have a dig, but be quick.’

  As Hugo measured out tea leaves, Vanessa searched. ‘Q’ was represented by a single hanging-file. In it, she found a peach-coloured card referring to a ‘Quarles, Timothy’, date of birth 6th March 1908, followed by personal details. ‘Clumsy when inebriated. Too fond of public houses, burdened with an ill-natured wife. Do not employ again.’ She asked Hugo, ‘Does everybody’s character get put on record?’

  ‘Even Macduff has a card,’ Hugo answered. ‘Nobody is spared. I started here in 1934 as a scenery-man’s assistant. Have a rifle, see if I’m still there.’

  Vanessa had just pulled out a manila envelope labelled ‘Quinnell C. J’, but she humoured Hugo, putting it aside and opening the top drawer once again. ‘Here you are,’ she said after a short search. ‘“Brennan, Hugh”. You’re an August baby, born nine months after the Great War ended.’

  ‘My parents knew how to celebrate.’

  ‘Why “Hugh” not “Hugo”?’

  ‘Mr Bovary said that “Hugo” was classier and that theatre was “frightfully, frightfully snobbish.” When I turned twenty-one, I made the change permanent. What does she say?’

  ‘She?’

  ‘These records are Miss Bovary’s handiwork. When the Domesday Book was written, and English folks’ souls were reduced to chattels, she was there with her quill, getting her hand in.’

  ‘She says you’re a promising painter, “Willing to learn though can be obtuse.”’

  ‘What the hell does “obtuse” mean?’

  ‘Slow to understand.’

  ‘I’m joking, Nessie.’

  ‘“Displays effeminate tendencies.” Awful woman!’

  ‘It was the way I held my paintbrush.’

  ‘“Is let down by his time-keeping –”’ The kettle whistled, filling the room with steam. Hugo poured boiling water over tea leaves while Vanessa shut and opened drawers, finding the brown envelope again.

  ‘Your father’s file?’ Hugo gently rocked the tea-pot side to side. ‘Another character assassination?’

  ‘It’s empty.’

  ‘As if he never existed.’ Hugo’s voice lost its teasing note. ‘She always did prefer the dead to the living.’

  ‘Miss Bovary?’

  ‘She cannot tolerate opposition – Oops, put your subservient face back on.’ Somebody was calling from the corridor. Hugo called back, ‘Just counting out the sugar grains, coming in a mo.’ Loading the tea tray, he said under his breath, ‘The Rolfs and the Bovarys have met their match in Alistair Redenhall, but that doesn’t mean they’ll go down without a fight. Now close that cabinet and put the keys back.’

  Having spent twice as long making tea as they ought, Vanessa expected a reprimand, but only Alistair looked up. He said briskly, ‘Put the tray on the desk, Brennan.’

  Vanessa tuned in to what Terence Rolf was saying.

  ‘Edwin is an experienced comic actor. Indeed, this being a family theatre, a Bovary must be part of the company.’

  Mrs Rolf took over from her husband. ‘Our son is perfect for the part of Mr Cecil Graham, in age, stature and natural demeanour. Wearing lustrous furs, and as fat as her husband was thin, she put Vanessa in mind of a she-bear defending her cub. 'You hold a different opinion, Commander?’

  ‘I defer to you and your husband on casting, just as I’ve deferred to you in the choice of director and designer.’ Alistair briefly shifted his gaze to Hugo. ‘However, it’s my decision that every person working here should have served in some capacity in the war. Unless they were too old or young to do so.’

  ‘Or too fragile,’ Mrs Rolf burst in. ‘Recurrent pleurisy prevented Edwin.’

  ‘In which case, he’s unsuited to the part anyway. Nowhere in the script does it say that Cecil Graham has a lung disorder.’

  ‘We’ll talk about this another time, Sylvia.’ Miss Bovary spoke, then turned a hooded look on Vanessa. ‘So. You are the Wardrobe Master who never was, Mrs Kingcourt. I was most surprised to learn that a female had been employed after all. You must be highly experienced, to merit the position.’

  ‘I’m not very experienced, I’m afraid.’ Leaving Hugo to make theatre of pouring tea – he was whistling ‘The Java Jive’ – Vanessa took a seat to Alistair’s left.

  Miss Bovary turned to Alistair. ‘Commander, perhaps you can explain your reasons for hiring Mrs Kingcourt.’

  ‘She was in the WAAF, where she did a job far harder than that of wardrobe mistress.’

  Terence Rolf glanced sidelong at Vanessa. ‘We all like a Mistress.’ He had removed his outdoor layers revealing a burgundy velveteen jacket, a mushy silk cravat filling the gap between its taffeta lapels. With hair dyed black around a bald patch, he looked every inch the aging rake. ‘Naturally, by “mistress” I meant “one in a position of authority”.’

  ‘Naturally,’ Vanessa echoed.

  Hugo passed tea cups around until something seemed to catch his eye. It was one of the photographs on the wall. Vanessa saw him lean forward, ignoring Miss Bovary who had taken a business card from her handbag and was holding it out to him.

  ‘Mr Brennan?’ She waved the card to get his attention. ‘Daphne
Yorke of Mayfair has been making costumes for us for years. Mr Brennan, are you listening?’

  Hugo turned around, slowly. ‘Sorry. You were saying?’

  ‘Mrs Yorke of Mayfair is expecting a call. She will make costumes to your sketches.’

  ‘Designs. I design, I don’t sketch.’ Hugo declined the card. ‘And I’ve set up my own atelier in Great Portland Street. I will create the originals and Mrs Kingcourt will take them to a manufacturer of my choosing. We’ll hire in whatever we don’t want to make.’

  Miss Bovary made a mouth shape as if sucking a seed from between her teeth. She returned the card to her bag, closing it with a snap. ‘The Farren never hires. Creating costumes in partnership with fine dressmakers is what we became famous for. Our costume collection was so renowned, we hired it out to others.’

  ‘So let’s use it!’

  ‘It’s gone.’

  ‘Hitler’s fault,’ Terence Rolf explained. ‘The same bomb that . . .’

  ‘Let’s not relive that horrible night.’ Miss Bovary held up a hand. ‘As we keep reminding ourselves, this is a new beginning.’ She trailed Hugo’s gaze, which had returned to the wall. She frowned, then happened to look across at Vanessa. She gave a start.

  ‘Is there something the matter?’ Vanessa asked.

  ‘I – no. I imagined for a moment that we’d met before, that’s all.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ Vanessa had no recollection of seeing Miss Bovary at Brookwood among the mourners, though she must have been there.

  Terence Rolf took over the conversation, expanding on the merits of the chosen director. ‘Aubrey Hinshaw is an old hand at Wilde. He’ll go for the wit and comedy, without trying to wring meaning from every line.’

  ‘I have my doubts about the play,’ Alistair said.

  ‘That’s nonsense.’ Miss Bovary had recovered her composure.

  Alistair let a beat or two pass. ‘Elegant banter in upper class drawing rooms . . . “Cucumber sandwich, dear Duchess?’’ Pretty much the only characters who aren’t titled are the maid and the butler. What’s more, The Farren will have done two Wilde plays in succession. War-sick audiences want something fresh.’