The Wardrobe Mistress_A heart-wrenching wartime love story

by Natalie Meg Evans

  Vanessa rested her iron and focused on the table. The memory she’d summoned in was of a circular, chocolate brown work box.

  She searched the room, knowing perfectly well she’d find nothing. In frustration, she took the golden key from around her neck and hung it on the door hook, with her scarf and greatcoat. Perhaps some things were not meant to be found.

  After hanging up her shirts, she settled down to repairs. The tear in Lady Windermere’s gown was beyond her skill; tomorrow, she’d have to have one of Penny’s girls mend it. Her last, least enjoyable, task that night was to remove the cotton underarm pads, which protected the costumes from the actors’ perspiration. She dropped the soiled ones into washing suds and added rose-water. As they soaked, she sewed in new ones. This would become a nightly chore. Eleven on the dot came a call from Doyle.

  ‘Taxi’s here, ma’am.’

  Another day over, the last insulated from reality. Tomorrow night, the curtain would rise on a real play, with a real audience and hard-nosed reviewers. By this time tomorrow, they’d know if they had a hit or a flop.

  Lady Windermere’s Fan opened on Thursday, November 28th. A sustained publicity effort in the run-up had generated high excitement. The PR Officer, Robin Amery, had bravely teased the press about the onstage chemistry between the star actors. He’d written up the lavish costumes and his reward was a phone that hadn’t stopped ringing for days.

  During the afternoon, the technicians did a run-through under Cottrill’s direction. The actors began arriving from six o’clock. Vanessa checked costumes and accessories so many times, she was in danger of worrying perfection to the bone. Tearing herself away, she toured the dressing rooms, wishing the cast good luck in her own way. She preferred ‘You’re going to be wonderful!’ to ‘Break a leg’, for all Tanith had told her that the phrase had nothing to do with cracked bones but referred to curtains called ‘legs’ which masked the wings from the audience. To ‘break a leg’ implied a glut of curtain calls, putting a strain on the infrastructure.

  Fifty minutes before curtain-up, Vanessa changed into a black dress with a buttonhole of white gardenias that Patrick had presented to her. She had erected a card table in the dressing room shared by Rosa, Gwenda, Maxine Shadwell and Emmeline Perkins, which would be her station during the show. Setting out the tools of her trade, she muttered, ‘This is what answering ads in The Stage gets you.’ She’d seen Alistair pacing the corridor, hands clasped behind him, a deadpan expression on his face. Nerves, his style.

  Rosa arrived, pulling off her hat and coat. ‘The rain it raineth.’ She looked at Vanessa’s table. ‘Five of us in here will make a tin of sardines look roomy.’

  Gwenda came in, her Macintosh gleaming. ‘It’s running rivulets on Farren Court with a surface of sludge from the bomb site.’

  ‘Doyle’s sprinkling sand on the footways,’ Vanessa assured them.

  ‘Good. I love winter, except for the dark nights and the weather.’ Gwenda switched on the lights around her mirror. ‘Crikey, here it comes. The gut-shimmie. The intestinal two-step. Pray silence while I recite the actors’ prayer: “Dear Lord, make me good, the audience kind and the critics human. Amen”.’

  Rosa handed round tiny shots of pre-war vodka. ‘Never get nerves myself.’ She had to be lying. Her cheeks were bloodless as she downed her liquor in one, then crammed her hair under a band and applied Max Factor pancake. ‘I heard we’ve critics coming from The Times, Telegraph, Daily Express and all viperous shades in between. Coming to the after-show party?’ she asked Vanessa.

  ‘With Patrick, yes.’

  Gwenda whooped. ‘Is he behind that fragrant buttonhole?’

  Vanessa touched the gardenias in embarrassment. ‘They have to have come from abroad. I hate to think how much they cost.’

  ‘Then don’t think,’ said Rosa, ‘or you’ll start imagining you have to repay him somehow. Let him see you home, but do not ask him up for coffee.’

  Heck, Vanessa thought. What have I let myself in for? A note had accompanied the posy. ‘Prince Charming requests the company of Cinderella.’ Vanessa had deduced from it that the party was an evening-dress occasion and had nearly cried off because her one long frock was blue dimity, made for her while she was still at school. In the end, Penny Yorke had saved her. Calling with a good-luck card, Penny had read Patrick’s note and snorted. ‘Any man who calls himself Prince Charming deserves his date to turn up in a fertiliser sack. But you, precious, shall go to the ball.’ At tea-time, a parcel had arrived. It contained a dress.

  The tannoy announced the half. Thirty-five minutes to go. Rosa went into a breathing routine, exhaling long, sibilant streams while Gwenda gargled and began her vocal exercises.

  ‘Moo-mah-may. Moo-mah-may. Jiggety-jiggety-jog. Jiggety-jiggety-jug.’

  Five minutes of that, then it was corsets on.

  As Rosa and Gwenda got into their gowns, Maxine Shadwell and Emmeline Perkins swept in with cheerful ‘Darlings!’ Not needed until the second act, they sat around in robes, drinking tea, comparing notes on their journeys in. They discussed if, to be classed as ‘cats and dogs’, rain had to be bouncing out of the gutters, or if ‘teeming’ was enough.

  Gwenda, reddening her lips with Leichner, asked in dismay, ‘What if it stops people coming?’

  ‘We get to eat the ice-lollies the usherettes don’t sell. I hear it’s a choice of frozen carrots or rhubarb pulp tonight.’ Rosa skimmed corn silk over her makeup, put on her flesh-coloured cap and lowered her wig over it. Instantly, she was a Duchess. ‘Fan. Hell. Where’s my fan?’

  ‘By your elbow, darling.’

  The tannoy crackled and a strangled voice announced, ‘Fifteen minutes, please, ladies and gentlemen.’

  ‘Who’s been giving that Switt boy elocution lessons?’

  Miss Eddrich’s dresser poked her head round the door. ‘All the boxes are occupied. Lots of flash-bulbs in the foyer. Lady Ververs has assumed the place of honour, her butler in attendance.’

  ‘Lady Who?’ Maxine Shadwell demanded.

  ‘Tanith Stacey’s grandma, Dido Meredith as was,’ Emmeline informed her. ‘I’ve heard that when they play the National Anthem, she bows and waves. Ooh, listen.’

  They could hear a rumbling, like potatoes tumbling into a hopper far away. An audience was gathering. Alistair came to wish everyone well, and Vanessa was able to appreciate him up close in his evening-wear. He told them he’d be watching from the Bovary Box. He’d sent flowers to all the cast and to Vanessa. Early snowdrops. Vanessa’s were in water, on her table upstairs to enjoy later. Alistair’s glance at her buttonhole prompted her to mumble, ‘Your flowers were lovely. Are, I mean. They’ll last. These won’t.’

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘Are you in my party tonight?’

  ‘I – I don’t know. I’m with Patrick.’

  ‘Then I will see you later.’ The tannoy summoned the beginners to the stage and Alistair went.

  Patrick Carnford came next to wish them ‘Merry times.’ Hair slicked to dark gold, he looked supremely elegant in a grey morning coat, his silk cravat pinned with a pearl spike. He wasn’t among the beginners so could lounge against the doorframe and smile at their bustle. ‘Remind me,’ he said to Vanessa, ‘is it The Importance or Lady Windermere tonight?’

  ‘Lady Windermere,’ she told him, horrified.

  ‘Patrick is teasing.’ Rosa told him to shift so she could get out. ‘Though anyone who slogged eight shows a week with ENSA might forget who they’re meant to be on any given night.’

  ‘Or they might wish to,’ Patrick came back with feeling. Rosa laughed and went on her way. Billy Chalker emerged from his dressing room, and a moment later, Ronnie Gainsborough and Clemency Abbott passed by on their way to the wings.

  A minute later came the opening bars of the overture. It dawned on Vanessa that she hadn’t seen Tanith.

  Chapter 30

  In the tiny upstairs dressing room that Tanith shared with the female understudy, Vanessa found panic. T
anith had knocked over a bottle of wet-white. Liquid makeup.

  ‘I didn’t put the top on. Do something, Vanessa!’ Glycerine and zinc oxide trailed down Lady Agatha’s costume. ‘I’m on in five minutes!’

  More like two. Vanessa hustled Tanith down to her station, where she scraped the mess off the skirt. She then sponged the silk with diluted white vinegar, which she’d bottled for such an eventuality. The wet-white came off, leaving a damp patch on the lemon yellow silk.

  ‘I smell like a chip shop,’ Tanith wailed. ‘I look as if I’ve wet myself. Mr Rolf will sack me.’

  Peter Switt came running up, red-faced and sweating. ‘Tanith, you nut-case, get going! Beginners are on stage already.’

  ‘“Miss Stacey” to you,’ Vanessa corrected. ‘And she will make her cue, never fear.’ Grabbing a diffuser of lavender water, she sprayed Tanith’s skirts, masking the smell. She ruched up the silk. ‘Hold your skirt as though you’re keeping your hem off the floor. Show the lace of your petticoat. There. Aren’t you meant to have a reticule?’

  ‘It’s upstairs!’

  ‘Here.’ Vanessa tore off her gardenias. ‘Hold these over the stain. Nobody will know. Run!’

  ‘Bless you, Nessie.’

  Noreen Ruskin was watching from her dressing room doorway. ‘A worthy successor to Eva.’

  ‘I hope so, Miss Ruskin.’

  The actress came into the corridor, head forward, eyes narrowed. ‘I’m absolutely certain I know you from somewhere else.’

  As applause rang out at the close of Act One, Vanessa crept backstage, curious to see, to hear and absorb. She found Patrick awaiting his Act Two cue.

  ‘How’s it going?’ she whispered.

  ‘They’re laughing in the right places, and sometimes in the wrong places, which is so much nicer.’

  ‘How’s Mr Chalker doing?’

  ‘Got a big clap on his entrance, which will please him. I daresay people expected him to come on in a spotted frock.’

  Miss Ruskin, sucking on an aniseed ball, glared. Roy FitzPeter, playing the Australian, Mr Hopper, stood silently, as if in prayer. Clemency Abbott stroked a stuffed, plush kitten. Everyone dealt with stage fright in their own fashion. Out of sight of the stage, a gramophone attached to loud-speakers began pealing Strauss waltzes to imply a ball in progress off-scene. Tom Cottrill was guarding it.

  Devilment made Vanessa go up to the stage manager and murmur, ‘No sightings of Back Row Flo?’

  Cottrill kept his gaze on the spinning centre of a vinyl disk. ‘I saw her, actually. I nipped out into the auditorium and there she was, two levels up, selling choc-ices.’

  ‘Good God. Where on earth did she find choc-ices? I haven’t seen one of those since 1940.’

  ‘Touché, Mrs Kingcourt, touché.’

  Vanessa couldn’t imagine what had altered Cottrill’s attitude until it struck her that, for the first time, she was wearing black. Neat, self-effacing, as a female employee should be. Cottrill wasn’t a deep soul; he was just a man. On stage, Tanith delivered her line with boisterous confidence. ‘Yes, mamma.’

  Vanessa projected silently to the unseen critics – we need this to work. Please love us. Irene Eddrich would make her entrance shortly in the mauve gown, and nothing would have dragged Vanessa away, though it meant enduring Ronnie Gainsborough tutting about ‘interlopers’ backstage. Miss Eddrich took up her position. She wore a velvet cloak, for warmth, and her dresser hovered near. On cue, the dresser held her arms and Irene let the cloak go. Neck, shoulder and arms gleamed like marble.

  ‘Well?’ Irene breathed, noticing Vanessa. ‘Will I do?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  Moments later, Vanessa heard an audible gasp, followed by spontaneous applause. She wished Hugo could have witnessed the effect of his creative vision.

  When the curtain fell at the end of Act Four, applause went on for four minutes, twenty-two seconds. Cottrill timed it. There were five curtain calls. After the final curtain, the dressing-room corridor filled with well-wishers, with pressmen and photographers.

  Vanessa squeezed through the crush, collecting up items of costume. She piled them on her table for the morning. Locking herself in, she prepared for her date. She would be one of the party booked to dine at Pinoli’s. Alistair would be there, and Irene but not, thankfully, Ronnie Gainsborough or Miss Abbott.

  The dress Penny had loaned her had been made for a petite client who’d then declared its flame-orange colour ‘impossible to wear’. It was ankle-length and sleeveless, with straps just wide enough to cover a brsserie, and was the sexiest thing Vanessa had ever worn. A nipped-in waist made the most of a skirt as full as the Board of Trade allowed. As Fern’s mustard-gold hat had done before, the colour seduced amber notes from her eyes and warmed her skin. Vanessa wasted several minutes trying to coax her curls into a bun. In the end, she brushed them vigorously and pushed them back over her ears with diamante clips. Checking her reflection, she decided the deep neckline needed to be filled. A diamond pendant or a gold dog-collar would be perfect . . . in her daydreams. At home, she had a string of cultured pearls, but no time to fetch them. In the end, she dried off Alistair’s snowdrops and pinned several to her bosom, then hung her gold key on a blonde ribbon so it nestled in the cleft of her breasts. She’d felt naked without it.

  Coat or no coat? Rain hammered against the window, but not hard enough to extinguish vanity. Cramming on her sandals, grabbing her bag, an umbrella and a filmy, silver stole, she ran to the lift.

  ‘Carnford’s gone ahead, didn’t you know?’ Gwenda Mason called from the stage door where she was waiting with Rosa, Maxine and Emmeline. Elation glowed in her cheeks and eyes. She’d glimpsed a girl in a Victorian bonnet, she said, in the upper circle. For the merest second.

  Maxine Shadwell said, ‘Patrick waited for you till gone seven.’

  Before Vanessa could answer, Alistair joined them. ‘Where are the others?’

  Maxine repeated, ‘Carnford’s gone ahead with Miss Eddrich. Roy, Vic and Miss Ruskin are on their way. We’re a party of

  ten.’

  Rosa whispered to Vanessa, ‘Irene was overwhelmed by the press, so Patrick whisked her out. My dear, it’s fatal to be late for someone like him. There’s always a rival ready to snatch your place. Oh dear. What became of the gardenias?’

  The open stage door was letting in rain and Vanessa wrapped her stole around her shoulders. ‘It feels worse, somehow, to be stood up while wearing orange.’

  Rosa tutted sympathetically but it was Alistair who answered. ‘You’ll have to make do with me. Shall we go?’

  Doyle informed them that their cabs were waiting on Bow Street, adding for Alistair and Vanessa’s ears alone, ‘Miss Bovary and Mr Edwin Bovary are to join your table.’

  Alistair’s expression shifted. ‘Why is Edwin coming?’

  ‘Miss Bovary’s escort.’

  ‘Can’t they go to Rules with Mr and Mrs Rolf?’ Alistair shrugged. ‘Don’t answer that, Doyle.’

  The doorman said he’d fetch Macduff down once the theatre was empty. ‘We’re having fish and chips, being as it’s First Night. Enjoy your dinner too, Sir and Madam.’

  That, Alistair told him, depended on the reviews. ‘The first editions will arrive during coffee.’

  Doyle had ordered four cabs, and Alistair and Vanessa found themselves alone in one. They reached the western end of Shaftsbury Avenue without a word wasted between them. His arm lay along the seat back, his sleeve brushing her shoulders.

  Their driver made a sharp right into Wardour Street and Alistair’s hand came down on her shoulder. She felt its warm weight. Skin never lies and hers felt as if it were purring. Not safe in taxis?

  Lethal. She turned toward him. Her lips stung, wanting to seduce a kiss from him before the taxi stopped. Loyalty to Patrick Carnford had fizzled away. After all, he’d jilted her. ‘Alistair?’

  He was staring out towards the brick ribbon of Wardour Street.

  ‘I wish you’d kiss
me.’ It was meant to be teasing; it came out fraught.

  ‘I know you do.’ He turned a maddened look on her. ‘But you’re Carnford’s date, not mine.’

  ‘I’m wearing your flowers, and I think he was being kind, or flirting.’

  ‘Carnford knows what he wants and usually gets it. Don’t look at him as you’re looking at me now.’

  ‘Like this?’ She bent close, her lips brushing his. Alistair leaned forward and tapped the dividing glass. ‘Drop us here, driver. We’ll walk the last fifty yards. Do us good.’

  Chapter 31

  At Pinoli’s, three tables had been pulled together, spread with linen and crystal. Patrick Carnford presided at one end and Irene Eddrich at the other. Thanks to Vanessa’s umbrella turning inside out in a gust of wind, she and Alistair arrived rather dishevelled and moments behind Miss Bovary and Edwin. Edwin was being divested of his scarlet-lined cloak.

  The same waiter took Vanessa’s stole. Noreen Ruskin, frowning in her habitual way, exclaimed as she saw Vanessa’s dress, ‘You’ve a dose of courage, wearing a gown that colour. Did you hire it, dear?’

  Alistair jumped in. ‘Any colour suits a sparkling complexion.’

  ‘You mean “windswept”,’ Vanessa said.

  Quietly, he answered, ‘You’ve bathed yourself in candle-flame. Go sit by Patrick, set him alight. I shall sit by Irene.’

  Irene Eddrich made room for him. ‘We’ve ordered as the kitchen has stayed open late for us. Mushroom fricassee, then lamb cutlets. We’re all having the same. Miss Bovary, would you like to sit on the other side of me, and Edwin beside Gwenda?’

  Patrick rose as Vanessa took the seat beside him. ‘How cruel, arriving with another man.’

  ‘Sorry. I spent too long titivating in front of the mirror.’

  ‘Not one second wasted.’ Patrick gave her exposed shoulders and cleavage a leisurely appreciation, though he frowned faintly at the snowdrops. ‘I had to dash. A pushy type with a notebook was asking Irene how it felt to share a stage with Clemency Abbott. “The mature actress and the rising star”. Quite uncalled for.’ He kissed Vanessa’s hand. ‘You look utterly charming. Do I?’