The Wardrobe Mistress_A heart-wrenching wartime love story

by Natalie Meg Evans

  The summons came from the doorway. He broke away and Vanessa attempted to cover herself. Fern stood in the doorway, a black object obscuring the upper part of her face. There came the click of a shutter. Another and another.

  Fern lowered her camera, a neat little pre-war Voigtländer. She was wearing her Paris suit with the big pockets. ‘I know a man who’ll develop this film in four hours. Nessie, didn’t you once advise me to consult a good divorce lawyer? I have one. He’s called Mr Cloud. Isn’t that charming? With chambers on The Strand.’ Fern smiled as if freedom were materialising in front of her. ‘He told me I needed proof of my husband’s adultery, and now I have it.’

  Vanessa pulled the bed covers up and whispered to Alistair, ‘What have we done?’

  ‘The blame is mine.’ He took and held her hand.

  Fern said musingly, ‘I wonder what the Blandfords would say if I showed them candid shots of you and the Wardrobe Mistress in my house. They’d say that at the very least it implies a lack of gratitude.’

  ‘Don’t make threats, Fern. Say what you intend to do.’

  ‘Do? Nothing. I used the last exposures months ago taking pictures in the park. One still can’t get a decent roll of new film. The camera shop sells government surplus but it jams this model.’

  ‘Are you saying there’s no film in the camera?’

  ‘Darlings, you’re off the hook, but my goodness, your faces. I won’t ask if you’re in love. Lust is written all over you.’

  As soon as she’d dressed, Alistair drove Vanessa to Long Acre and they packed those of her belongings that would fit in the car. She had Hugo’s keys, and intended to move straight in to his flat. The owner of the dance-wear shop was the landlord, so she saw little problem in having the tenancy assigned to her. Tomorrow, members of The Farren’s stage-crew would shift her larger items.

  Before leaving room six-A for the last time, Vanessa made a sweep of every corner while Alistair opened an alcove cupboard. ‘Nothing much here,’ he said. ‘Empty beer bottles. And this.’ He passed her the beginnings of a letter. Written on cheap, lined paper, it was dated, ‘February 9th, 1945.’ But ‘9th’ was crossed out, and ‘10th’ was written in its place, suggesting the letter had been begun after midnight.

  In Johnny’s familiar, left-hander’s writing was, ‘Dear Toots, I’m so sorry our meeting miscarried – ’

  Vanessa said, ‘This must be where he died, though I used to write to him at room seven.’

  At the door, Alistair traced a shape with his finger. ‘This is room seven. See? Someone’s unscrewed the original number and replaced it with “Six A”. You can see seven’s ghost in the paintwork.’

  She shuddered. ‘Let’s go.’

  That night, Vanessa slept in Hugo’s flat, which was warm and smelled pleasantly of furniture oil. She was woken early by the clopping of hooves outside. Pressing her face to the window, she saw a horse-drawn gig going by, full of family in their Sunday best. On a jaunt out of town? She spent a moment relishing the fact that she was alive and well, though still weak.

  She washed in Hugo’s tiny bathroom and threw on her clothes, eager to get to The Farren. Miss Abbott’s dress was due for delivery at seven a.m.. The Blandfords would arrive late morning. Mr Kidd, who worked here on Sundays, let Vanessa in at the stage door, pushing out a clipboard.

  ‘Sign, please, Miss, and jot down your arrival time. You’re a pair of early birds.’

  He must be referring to Alistair whose name the only other one on the list. He’d arrived at five-forty. ‘“None shall sleep”,’ she murmured.

  In the wardrobe room, she boiled water and wished she had a telephone extension so she could call Alistair and say, ‘Tea’s up.’

  Would he come to her? Looking back on their embrace of the day before, Vanessa tried to see it as a turning point in their relationship, though it felt more of a power shift in the battle between Alistair and Fern. She made tea for one and munched on salted biscuits. All she could do now was wait for Mrs Farrah-Digby’s girl.

  Seven a.m. came and went.

  At eight, she heard feet on the stairs. She ran out and saw Rosa Konstantiva.

  ‘Your face tells me I’m not what you wanted,’ Rosa said.

  ‘If the dress doesn’t arrive soon – ’

  ‘It will, and Clemency Abbott will keep us waiting. Make me some tea, darling. I’ve brought the remains of a French apple tart. A friend of mine bakes them.’

  The dress arrived at nine-twenty. Kidd brought up a sullen creature with pudding-bowl hair and thick ankle socks. In reply to Vanessa’s, ‘You’re two hours late!’ the girl muttered, ‘Madam said you’d give me my bus fare and something for my time. She said not to leave without you paying her bill. Six guineas.’

  Vanessa dug into her petty cash tin. ‘Five shillings cover your bus fare?’

  ‘I want fifteen.’

  ‘Five. And tell “Madam” that I’ll pay her balance when she invoices me. Put the parcel on the table. Wait –’ the girl had flung down a brown paper package and stomped to the door – ‘I want to check it before you go.’

  ‘Madam said to tell you it’s as you asked, and she doesn’t do refunds.’ The girl kept walking.

  ‘Sounds ominous,’ Rosa muttered.

  Vanessa cut the parcel string and Rosa sniffed.

  ‘Your seamstresses smoke. Though so does Clemency, so perhaps she won’t notice. When I worked in couture, tobacco was maudit.’ Rosa put her nose to the packaging. ‘It isn’t just cigarettes.’

  Vanessa pulled out the dress. It held the creases of its folding, even when she shook it. ‘Cat,’ she wailed in disgust. ‘It smells of fags and tom cat!’

  She and Rosa took it between them. It seemed the right shape with puffed ‘elephant’ sleeves tapering at the elbow to a tight cuff. It had a high neck, a sharply-defined waist and a short train. All the signatures of an age of fashion extremes. But –

  ‘Something’s very wrong,’ said Rosa.

  Instead of the eighty-shillings-a-yard French silk Vanessa had supplied, the under-dress was of shiny, artificial taffeta. The top lace had been used skimpily while the Brussels lace was nowhere. It wasn’t in the parcel at all. Vanessa realised that Mr Doll had been warning her, in his way, not to use Mrs Farrah-Digby. Not to be too desperate. She hadn’t listened, and now she’d been swindled.

  Rosa laid the dress on the table, lifting the hem and exposing raw edges. ‘She has a workroom, this Mrs Farrah-Wotsit?’

  ‘No.’ Vanessa was sure of it now. The smell, the rushed look. ‘She’s gone at it herself, stolen my cloth and I’m going to kill

  her.’

  Rosa turned the dress over, holding the skirt up to the light. ‘What’s this stain?’

  Vanessa looked. ‘It’s coffee. No, it’s gravy. No! The bloody woman’s scoffed her dinner at her sewing table.’

  ‘At least the mark is on the back.’

  They heard the lift hydraulics grinding just then and sooner than they liked, Alistair was ushering in Miss Abbott. Greeting them in his detached way, he said, ‘I’ve had a message from the Blandfords’ secretary.’

  ‘They’re not coming.’ Vanessa sagged with relief.

  ‘They’re attending a matins service at St Paul’s and will be here at eleven-forty, curtain up at eleven-fifty. Did you see the set?’ he asked Vanessa.

  She hadn’t. She’d come straight to her room. ‘Is it good?’

  ‘The scenery men have done a nice job. Ronnie Gainsborough’s coming, and James Harnett too. They and Miss Abbott will perform an opening excerpt from Act One. Don’t worry,’ he smiled faintly at Vanessa’s expression, ‘both men are bringing their own costume. Is that the dress?’ He moved as if to inspect it but Rosa snatched it up and flapped it.

  ‘Best way to get creases out. Scoot, please, Commander. Let’s try it on you, Clemency.’

  Alistair left and Vanessa fetched the hired corset, a chemise and drawstring pantalettes. Clemency Abbott was at the mirror, trying out d
ifferent angles for her burgundy velour hat. Her nail colour was a perfect match and Vanessa couldn’t help wondering how the woman managed to be a fashion plate so early in the day. A personal maid, perhaps?

  ‘Miss Abbott, if you’d kindly go behind the screen and don your underpinnings? Rosa will help.’ Vanessa scratched the back of her neck. Nerves usually made her cough, not itch. A moment later, she dug under her waistband to scratch. It wasn’t nerves; it must be bed bugs from her short stay in room six-A. Betty of the squeaking springs must have had an infestation.

  ‘Corset, please,’ Rosa called.

  Vanessa passed it over the top of the screen. Shortly afterwards, Clemency Abbott emerged, waist pinched to an authentic fin-de-siècle nineteen inches. Vanessa opened out the dress for the actress to step into. It was only-just across the bosom. When re-laced, it would flatten the famous Abbott contours. We’ll keep it loose, Vanessa decided.

  ‘What horrid material.’ Clemency stroked her hips. ‘And what’s wrong with these sleeves?’ She tried vainly to raise her arms. ‘I’m trapped.’

  Rosa said without missing a beat, ‘I can tell you from personal experience, it was considered aristocratic at the turn of the century to be pinioned.’

  ‘But I need to arrange roses. I need to act, damn it.’

  ‘We’ll make an incision under the arms, and put in a gusset.’ Vanessa almost laughed. She’d been storing up the word ‘gusset’ and hadn’t realised why. She was loosening the dress when Miss Abbott spun around so violently, the cheap taffeta split. ‘Something’s eating me,’ she screamed. ‘Get this vile thing off me!’

  ‘If you’d just stay still, Miss Abbott – ’

  ‘Don’t “Miss Abbott” me! This dress is crawling! The room needs fumigating. You need fumigating. How dare you?’

  Eventually stripped to a chemise over pantalettes, Clemency Abbott shoved her arms into her coat, not bothering with her dress. As she searched for her shoes, she shouted, ‘I’ll call my agent. This is a violation of my contract.’

  Vanessa stood numb, while Rosa opened the window and hurled the dress out.

  ‘Cat fleas,’ she muttered to Vanessa.

  ‘Cat, yes. I wronged Betty.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Never mind. I’ll have to resign. If I don’t, Miss Bovary will demand Alistair sack me. And what about the Blandfords?’ Vanessa leapt back to avoid being hit by a chair. Clemency was flinging them aside as she tried to find her shoes.

  Rosa said, ‘There’s always a way out, whatever the situation.’

  ‘We don’t have a dress and in a minute, we’ll have no actress. I suppose you could – ’

  ‘Be Lady Windermere for the day? If Ronnie Gainsborough has to make love to me, he’ll walk too. Clemency?’ Rosa threw her voice. She occasionally gave ballet classes and had developed a tone that could bring a lake of swans to a stop, instantly.

  Clemency Abbott dropped the chair she’d been about the chuck. ‘Where the hell are my shoes?’

  ‘I have a horrible feeling I may have thrown them out of the window, with the dress.’

  ‘Miss Konstantiva, I’ll have you – ’

  ‘Applauded for quick-thinking? Darling, how generous. Do calm down, or you’ll burst veins in your cheeks.’

  ‘Fetch my shoes!’

  ‘I’d rather not, dear.’

  ‘Then she can fetch them.’ Clemency stuck a finger at Vanessa, who could see the shoes on the sink drainer. Clemency hadn’t spotted them yet through her red mist.

  ‘Good idea.’ Rosa smiled as if she knew that Vanessa would somehow salvage the situation.

  Heaven alone knew how. The only solution would be to provide Clemency with a dress so perfect that it would melt her anger and sweep away malice. Leaving the room, Vanessa acknowledged that even if she found such a dress, by the time she came back with it, Clemency would be gone. Though that could be rectified. Vanessa locked the door behind her, and strode away, thinking, Might as well be sacked for two crimes rather than one.

  If she was to save herself from being out of a job and, inevitably, out of Alistair’s life, she had to pull a cat out of the bag. Unfortunate phrase, in view of what was biting her under her blouse. She stopped halfway down the stairs. ‘I wonder . . .’

  Chapter 22

  There was no certainty that Tanith had been telling the truth about her grandmother’s Worth gown, and the chances were that Lady Ververs would flatly refuse to lend it anyway. But there was nothing to lose by asking.

  One problem – Vanessa didn’t have Tanith’s telephone number. Alistair was also unlikely to have it.

  But how about a fanatical record-keeper who knew everything about everyone? In the poky room where she’d made tea with Hugo on her first day, she located the keys and opened the drawer labelled ‘R-S-T-U’. It took her a few moments to find ‘Stacey, Tanith’. There was an address, 4 St James’s Park Terrace, and a telephone number. Tanith had told Miss Bovary the truth about her domestic circumstances, at least. Relocking the cabinet, Vanessa tried Alistair’s door in hope of using the phone, but it was locked. She could hear the dog snoring inside. Miss Bovary’s room was not locked and she crept inside and dialled the operator from the desk telephone.

  As she did so, she discovered she’d accidentally brought two cards out of the cabinet. The second one belonged to Eva St Clair. As she waited to be connected to Lady Ververs’ residence, she read what Miss Bovary had written about The Farren’s tragic Wardrobe Mistress.

  “Accomplished. Roman Catholic, a priest’s sister, unmarried. Has a scandalous understanding with Johnny Quinnell and others.” Was ‘others’ code for Wilton Bovary? The record continued: “Gave birth out of wedlock, at The Farren, having hidden her condition. Disrupted opening night of “The de Vere Mystery”. Child small and frail.” A pulse ticked in Vanessa’s neck. Eva had given birth . . . There were no clues as to the child’s gender or its fate. An entry dated 12th September 1940, in different ink stated: ‘Eva gravely injured in last night’s bombing. Not expected to live.’ A final, chilling line had been added on the 1st of September 1946. The September just gone: “Eva St Clair is dead.”

  Lady Ververs’ butler answered just then. After learning Vanessa’s situation, he gave his opinion that there was indeed a Worth gown stored away in the house, and that her Ladyship might oblige if the correct degree of gratitude were shown.

  ‘I’m willing to open a vein and give her a goblet of my blood, Mr Tucker.’

  The butler suggested that a private box on opening night would be more acceptable, and Vanessa recklessly agreed. Reading confirmation of Eva’s death had lent her the courage that sometimes accompanies shock. ‘Tell Tanith it’s for Miss Abbott and to bring it in a taxi now.’

  On her way out of Miss Bovary’s room, she snatched a moment to look for the photograph that Hugo had stared at the last time she’d been in this room. She fancied that one had been removed, the others shifted around to cover the gap. There must be a hundred or more, recording The Farren’s repertoire right back to the late Victorian era. She was intrigued by a picture of a near-naked trapeze artist caught in mid-flight across a painted sky. A thin girl with elfin features. A young Barbara Bovary! Beside that hung the cast photo of The de Vere Mystery. She recognised Johnny at once. He was playing a gardener, or similar, wearing a leather jerkin and bowler hat. A caption read ‘Opening Night’. It was dated May 29th 1920.

  That was the very day that she, Vanessa, had entered the world.

  Her watch said eleven-fifteen. Miss Abbott was due on stage in thirty-five minutes. Vanessa shook off the cold chills to concentrate on rescuing her career.

  ‘You locked us in,’ were Miss Abbott’s first words as Vanessa returned to the wardrobe room.

  ‘Did I? My poor brain! But I’ve found you a fabulous dress.’

  The room smelled of acetone. Rosa explained, ‘I persuaded Clemency that she couldn’t play Lady Windermere with burgundy fingernails.’

  ‘I’m no
t playing her,’ said Miss Abbott with cold finality. ‘When I get home, I shall invoke the clause in my contract that says I mustn’t be physically endangered, or my health threatened.’

  ‘But you haven’t been threatened,’ Vanessa protested.

  ‘Cat fleas,’ Clemency said with triumph. ‘You can catch plague from them.’

  ‘Not cat, dear, rat. You obviously weren’t listening in history lessons.’ Rosa returned the nail polish remover to the wardrobe. ‘Oh my, what have we here, Mrs Kingcourt?’ She held up a box. ‘If not a wealthy French lover, then a black market chum?’

  She’d found the Chanel perfume that Vanessa had still not given back to Fern. ‘It has the boutique label on it. My dear, you could sell this for twenty pounds.’

  In a flash, Clemency had taken the box from Rosa, her fingers melting around it. She gave Vanessa a naked glance.

  ‘Ten pounds,’ she said huskily.

  ‘It’s not for sale, Miss Abbott.’ The door to the room bumped open and Tanith stumbled in, breathless. She had a bushel of oyster-white silk over her arm.

  ‘Granny’s gown!’ she announced.

  ‘Fifteen pounds,’ Clemency said.

  ‘The perfume isn’t for sale.’ Vanessa put it back into the cupboard then helped Tanith lay the dress on the table. Silk-satin rustled like sweet papers. Pale skirts were embroidered with humming birds whose tongues were embedded in lush camellia flowers. A poem without words. An erotic poem.

  ‘She was a lass, your granny,’ Vanessa said, stroking the silk. Though not the morning gown the script called for, it would make a powerful statement. If she could persuade Clemency Abbott to put it on.

  Rosa made a long ‘mmm’ as she fingered the cloth. ‘Genuine Worth. They don’t make glories like this these days.’

  ‘When granny wore it to her box at the theatre, people in the stalls rose and applauded,’ Tanith said.

  Clemency hardly looked at the dress. ‘I will have that perfume. Twenty pounds.’

  Vanessa held up the gown, reverently. ‘I swear it’s a seventeen-inch waist. Too small for you, Miss Abbott.’