The Wardrobe Mistress_A heart-wrenching wartime love story

by Natalie Meg Evans

  ‘Mm, show me mine.’

  Vanessa did so. Miss Abbott stared for a very long time. ‘Who is going to make my gowns?’

  ‘Um, it’s in hand, Miss Abbott.’

  ‘You have red cabbage stuck to your lip.’

  Vanessa automatically touched the split in her lip. No amount of lipstick would cover it. And yes, she knew it looked as if a sliver of cabbage had stuck to her.

  Miss Abbot turned to the mirror, inspecting a powdered cheek. ‘The other morning, you were insolent to me and I am irreplaceable. So if I say “Jump” you say, “How high?” Understand?’

  Vanessa perfectly understood. She also understood that Miss Abbott had an enticing, white neck and that her tape measure would fit four times round it. Five if pulled very tight. ‘I had intended to apologise again, Miss Abbott, but you’ve beaten me to it.’

  ‘So that’s the pleasantries over.’ Rosa Konstantiva pointed to the clock. ‘You now have only forty-seven minutes till we’re needed back on stage, Clemency. Get your kit off.’

  Laughing, Miss Abbott presented her back to Vanessa. ‘Take care with my buttons. They’re bone, hand-carved.’

  When undressed, Clemency Abbott’s underwear reminded Vanessa of the cow parsley that frothed in Stanshurst’s lanes in springtime. Physically, the girl was flawless. Her measurements would be text-book perfect. Vanessa asked, ‘Would you please raise your arms?’

  Miss Abbott raised them a couple of inches. Putting the tape measure around the slender waist, Vanessa dropped one end, which swung against Miss Abbott’s stockinged leg.

  ‘You’ll replace these nylons if you ladder them.’

  The second time, Vanessa jotted down the measurement. Thirty-one inches.

  Clemency Abbott screamed. ‘I’ll sue you. Twenty-three inches. You’re holding the tape-measure the wrong way!’

  Rosa came over. ‘Mrs Kingcourt, you are rather short and Miss Abbott is rather the opposite. No wonder you’re struggling. Allow me. You take the notes.’

  Rosa manipulated the tape measure this way and that, reeling off figures. She wasn’t afraid to say, ‘Arms higher, please, Clemency. Head straight. Straight. Leave the mirror alone, you’ll wear out your reflection.’ She took measurements Vanessa hadn’t even considered: nape of neck to small of back, hip to the point of the opposite shoulder. As she worked, her accent slipped deeper into French.

  ‘Et voilà,’ she said at last. ‘Ca y est c’est fait. Just in time. Est-ce qu’on remercie les autres pour leurs efforts? Mademoiselle Abbott?’

  Clemency’s quicksilver tone slipped. ‘What?’

  ‘Say thank you, darling, or we’ll imagine you have no manners.’

  Clemency Abbott said to Vanessa, ‘I hope you got all that down.’

  ‘Every last inch, Miss Abbott.’

  ‘If I don’t like the dress, I won’t wear it.’

  When she’d gone, Vanessa flopped on to a chair. ‘Thank you, Miss Konstantiva. You must have done this before.’

  ‘I worked for a couturier in Paris. A couturière, I should say. A girl younger than you. Darling Alix, but don’t get me started on that. Who’s doing your making-up?’

  Vanessa fetched the card Mr Doll had given her. ‘She’s called Mrs Farrah-Digby. Very good, and she’s free. I mean, free to take on a job.’

  ‘Why, if she’s good?’

  ‘An unexpectedly cancelled order.’

  Rosa grunted. ‘All right, but next time, find somebody who is snowed under. They’re always the ones to ask. Right, want a lesson in how to make a block pattern from somebody’s measurements?’

  Vanessa would for ever after think of Mrs Farrah-Digby as ‘The Cat-Keeper.’ It took her over four hours to find the costume-maker’s home on a Victorian-gothic street in Sydenham, one of London’s southeast extremities. Jumping off the last of three buses, Vanessa laboured up a hill that gave a stunning panorama of London and far-off Kent. The wind whipped at the skirts of her coat. The house was a handsome villa, but dirty windows and an unkempt front garden dragged it down.

  Still, everyone’s windows were dirty and many gardens were wildernesses, as people had left London in droves. She rang the bell, and read the tarnished brass plate by the door: Farrah-Digby, costumier.

  Vanessa had written, quoting Mr Doll’s name, saying she’d be calling today at eleven. She had no idea if her letter had arrived. As the bell clanged in the heart of the house, Vanessa adjusted the satchel that was cutting into her shoulder. She rang again and the lusty clangs eventually brought footsteps. The door opened narrowly and a woman with curling-rags in her hair stuck her chin out. ‘Who and why?’

  Vanessa got a waft of smells, none pleasant. The fingernails around the edge of the door were stained dark yellow. Vanessa explained her business, repeating ‘Mr Doll of Doll & Saunders’ and ‘The Farren Theatre’ several times. ‘There’s a big order to come, a production’s-worth, but we absolutely need a first dress by Sunday. He thought you could do it.’

  ‘Who thought?’

  Vanessa repeated ‘Mr Doll’ loudly.

  ‘Why didn’t you say?’ Mrs Farrah-Digby opened the door another inch or two. ‘Come in, but don’t let the cats out.’

  Vanessa squeezed through. With her satchel swinging, she felt like a camel passing through a turn-style. The door shut and she was in a dark hallway, four plaintive cats winding around her ankles. Two more regarded her from the stairs. The primary odour was of feline male.

  ‘You must love cats,’ she said, to break the ice.

  ‘I feed them, they repay by killing mice. Come on through.’ A haze of cigarette smoke caught Vanessa’s throat. There must have been a party here last night. On a dining table cluttered with glasses and ash trays that Mrs Farrah-Digby pushed to one side, Vanessa laid out a detailed drawing of Lady Windermere’s morning gown which she’d copied from Hugo’s original. To that she added the template she and Rosa had created from Clemency Abbott’s dimensions. Then, very carefully, she took out her silk. There’d been no time to dye it to the prescribed colour, a mid-lilac, but Vanessa had acquired lace that colour, and a separate length of antique ivory lace to trim sleeves and neckline. The Farren needed a dress capable of seducing Miss Abbott into the performance of a lifetime, and the wealthy Blandfords into taking out their chequebook.

  She’d also brought some of the violet coat linings she’d unpicked. A resourceful seamstress ought to be able to create a passable replica of Hugo’s design from all these pieces. Mrs Farrah-Digby turned them over. She wore a candlewick dressing gown over silk pyjamas.

  When I rang the bell, she was in bed, smoking. Vanessa thought of Mr Doll’s whirring, clattering workroom and wondered – where’s the noise? The activity?

  The woman sniffed. ‘By Sunday, you say?’

  ‘I’d need it by Saturday afternoon. By five p.m. at the latest.’

  ‘Sunday it would have to be. My head-woman collects work from me at seven. Her girls won’t start on it till tomorrow: Thursday to cut, Friday to sew. Lace-covered silk is two dresses. Saturday for the trimmings, Saturday night to hem and finish. And it won’t be cheap. Period styles aren’t like modern clothes. Your average girl-who-sews wouldn’t have a clue.’

  It’d be a lot less effort to hire from Stage-Stock. ‘You do have period patterns? This is a gown of the late 1890’s – ’

  ‘Modern clothes fit to the body,’ Mrs Farrah-Digby cut in. ‘Period clothes are built to sit over underpinnings. You’ve brought the corset that goes with it?’

  ‘No.’ Vanessa was going to Stage-Stock later for that. She’d had an illuminating conversation with their corset mistress a few days ago, who had advised on the correct shape. Wasp-waisted ‘swan-bill’ and ‘S-bend’ corsets had come in a few years after Lady Windermere’s era, the woman had advised. The look Vanessa required was more ‘ice cream cornet’, straight-sided.

  Vanessa asked Mrs Farrah-Digby about her charges.

  With more speed than Vanessa would have attributed to someo
ne still in pyjamas at eleven-thirty in the morning, Mrs Farrah-Digby presented a chit for Vanessa’s signature, asking for an upfront payment of twelve guineas. ‘Just so we know where we stand. Can you let yourself out?’

  Walking downhill to the bus stop a few minutes later, Vanessa couldn’t stop thinking about French silk and antique lace between those yellow-stained fingers.

  Choosing Lady Windermere’s accessories from Stage-Stock took a couple of hours. There was a long discussion as to which shape of fan would be historically accurate. In the end, Vanessa selected ostrich feather, as it was the most dramatic. Vanessa also hired shoes and earrings, a pearl choker, engagement and wedding rings. On her way back to the tube, she bought a meat-and-potato pie – mostly potato – from a butchers on City Road, eating it fast as she walked. It was now pitch-dark, and when she reached Farren Court, she was glad of her torch. Alistair was having the path reconstructed, so as well as the usual pot-holes, there were unlaid paving blocks to avoid. The wind keened eerily along the theatre’s flanks and she was glad when a powerful beam illuminated Caine Passage. It was Alistair coming alongside her, lighting the way with a signalling torch. He had Macduff on a lead beside him.

  He said, ‘Advance warning, the Rolf-Bovarys are here in force.’ He fished out his keys at the stage door. ‘I’ve given Doyle orders to lock up whenever he’s away from his post.’

  She accused him of fastening the stable door after the horse had bolted.

  ‘Where has the horse bolted, by the way?’ Alistair took her satchel, giving her macduff’s lead in return.

  ‘Paris. Why are the Rolfs and Bovarys here?’

  ‘To gloat. They’ve heard about Hugo’s defection. Will we have our dress in time?’

  ‘If we don’t, I’m running away to Paris too.’

  In the auditorium, a cleaner was polishing the ashtrays on the backs of the seats. Once the show opened, a team would come in at dawn each day, but right now, it was a lonely job. Peter Switt was swabbing the stage boards under Cottrill’s direction. Doyle came down the side aisle, touching his cap to Alistair and Vanessa. He must have worked out that they’d let themselves in. ‘Call of nature, sir, ma’am.’

  Alistair told him they didn’t need the minutiae. His attention shifted upwards, where Neptune’s trident pierced the painted waves. He said slowly, ‘Terence Rolf wants The Farren, but he doesn’t love it. At Bo’s wake, I sat a moment in the dark and overheard Rolf and Miss Bovary talking. They expressed no grief. It was all about how they would run this place now they had a free hand. And they spoke of Bo’s money, how they might get it, afraid someone else would beat them to it.’

  Vanessa hissed at Alistair to say no more. The Rolfs, their son and Miss Bovary were a few yards away. A Royal Flush, she thought, though a better collective noun might be ‘a Stealth of Rolf-Bovarys’ as she hadn’t heard them enter the auditorium. They appeared dressed to go out, the ladies in fur and rhinestones, the men in evening suits. Edwin wore his red-lined cloak with a magician’s flair.

  ‘Oh – ’ Vanessa almost flew off her feet as Macduff lunged towards the newcomers, halting short of them, haunches low.

  Edwin Bovary shouted, ‘Redenhall, do something!’

  Alistair retrieved the dog, rolling the lead round his wrist for extra grip. ‘I wonder why he dislikes you all so deeply. You in particular, Edwin.’

  ‘Because I don’t like dogs and refuse to fuss him.’

  Later, as Vanessa was putting her acquisitions away in the wardrobe room, Alistair came to her, Macduff with him. The dog was panting, open-mouthed. A sign of stress.

  She filled a bowl with water and the dog lapped gratefully. ‘Have they gone?’

  ‘They’re having aperitifs in the green room. After you escaped, I withstood twenty reasons why I should terminate this dog’s life. Oh, and they’re planning to gate-crash the Blandfords’ visit.’

  ‘Can’t you ban them?’

  ‘I could. I have adequate reason, but I’m biding my time.’ Alistair scowled. ‘I can feel them fingering concealed daggers, like Borgias at a wedding feast. Watch your back, Mrs Kingcourt, because Miss Bovary intends to call in Mrs Yorke to take over your job.’

  ‘Too late.’ Vanessa took Hugo’s cheque from her bag. ‘He’s waived his fee, and signed the costumes over to me. Miss Bovary and Mrs Yorke can go jump.’

  It was way past home-time, and Alistair accompanied her down to the stage door where they saw the Rolfs and their son departing just ahead of them. Vanessa asked angrily, ‘Why does Edwin wear that cloak?’

  ‘It’s a device to show that he is a serious, successful actor, in the footsteps of his late uncle.’ He caught her expression. ‘What have I said?’

  ‘The last time I saw it, my dad was wearing it.’

  Alistair shook his head. ‘With respect, Vanessa, your father probably bought his things second hand. If he wore a cloak with a red lining – and they were part of the actors’ uniform a generation ago – he either bought it cheap or it was a discarded prop.’ They reached the door. ‘Would you like an escort home?’ It was very dark, no moonlight.

  She accepted. At the door of the Calford Building, Alistair said, ‘I’m taking Macduff back to my flat tonight. He hates my stairs, but I want him under my eye for a while.’

  ‘They wouldn’t hurt him?’

  ‘Who knows?’ Leaning forward, he kissed her cheek. ‘Good night.’

  ‘You too.’ She watched him go, matching his pace to the dog’s. She almost called him back, but obscenities shouted from an upper floor window reminded her that her lodgings were eccentric, to put it mildly. Besides, she felt suddenly rather queasy.

  As she searched for her door key, two men came down the stairs. Each carried a tea chest laden with household goods. They were followed by a woman clutching a bundle of personal items. The landlord brought up the rear saying, ‘I warned you, Betty. I won’t have monkey-business on my premises.’

  ‘Sod you,’ the woman chucked back. ‘You were happy enough to take rent off me all these months.’

  ‘Because you told me you were an exotic dancer. What you do for a living ain’t exotic and it ain’t dancing.’ The landlord noticed Vanessa desperately trying to fit her key in her lock. ‘I’ve got a better class of tenant now.’

  The woman flung at Vanessa, ‘You’ve had it in for me from the start, you stuck-up bitch. Don’t forget, your window’s right on the pavement. Funny how bricks fly out of a person’s hand.’

  ‘Sorry about that, dear,’ the landlord said after the woman had stormed away in pursuit of her possessions.

  ‘You must have had some idea what she was up to.’

  ‘There’s “having an idea” and there’s having it shoved in your face. One of her “gentlemen friends” came up to my flat at four this morning and relieved himself on my door mat. I don’t sleep soundly and I caught him at it. ’

  Vanessa grimaced. Betty – she hadn’t known the woman’s name until now – had robbed her of many hours’ sleep and she wouldn’t miss her. But what if she followed through on her threat? She was compelled to ask, ‘Will you show me her room? I’d feel safer one flight up.’

  ‘You fancy Betty’s room? All right. Follow me.’

  Each floor of the Calford Building contained four rooms, and each level had basic lavatory and washing facilities. Other than to bash on Betty’s door when the groaning bedsprings had threatened to unhinge her, Vanessa had never climbed the stairs. She’d never discovered if the room directly above hers was number seven, the one her father had occupied. She was relieved to discover it was six-A. All at once, she felt nauseous. It must be due to climbing the dirty stairs and touching the greasy handrail.

  Betty’s abandoned room was no better appointed than Vanessa’s, except that it had small oven and a vanity unit around the sink. ‘I’ll take it right away. Will you help me swap my furniture around?’

  The landlord saw no reason why not, saying he’d help her on Saturday.

  ‘Now – t
onight. Betty might come back after a few drinks and bring friends with her. Lots of men have guns. They were meant to hand them in when they left the services, but they didn’t always.’

  Perhaps fearing a second death on his property, the landlord immediately fetched extra hands from a nearby pub. Two hours later, Vanessa was in her own bed, in a new room. ‘I’ve gone up in the world.’ This room’s atmosphere felt heavy. Along with nausea, she had shooting pains in her stomach.

  She woke in the early hours with the worst headache of her life, a steel clamp to her brow and a sweat-soaked nightdress. That meat pie she’d eaten earlier after Stage-Stock –

  She got to the corner sink in time to be grossly sick then crawled back to bed. Though the sickness eased, the headache didn’t. Fever took over her limbs.

  What if she died too? She was a terrified five-year-old again. What if she, Vanessa, was put into a hole as dark as this room, as cold as the night outside? She reached into the darkness for her father’s hand but there was no answering warmth. Not there for her. Never there for her.

  Chapter 20

  ‘Tanith?’ He found the girl in the green room, reading a magazine. Now officially cast as Lady Agatha Carlise, ‘Miss Stacey’ had adopted lazy ways. ‘I need you to do something.’

  It was Thursday, mid-morning, and Alistair had been twice to the wardrobe room. Walking away last night on Long Acre, he’d felt Vanessa’s silent call and despised the pig-headedness that had stopped him turning around. Throughout the night, he’d woken repeatedly with the Rolfs’ and Miss Bovary’s faces in his head. Vanessa thankfully hadn’t noticed, but yesterday, they’d stared at her as if they were writing a script and she was the page. They hated her. It had made his skin creep and now she hadn’t come in. He would have gone himself, but he had a fire inspection this morning, and he didn’t trust Cottrill to handle it. He gave Tanith Vanessa’s address and asked her to go right away.

  ‘She may be visiting cloth wholesalers, but she normally tells Doyle where she’ll be.’