Dressing the Dearloves

by Kelly Doust

  ‘What?’ Gigi asked sharply, narrowing her eyes. ‘What did she tell you?’

  ‘She said . . . um, she said that you begged her to let you come back . . .’

  Gigi snorted. ‘I’m sure she did. But the truth is, she asked me. I was perfectly happy living in California. I loved it, I wanted to stay there forever, around my soul people and with all that sunshine, but Lizzie told me she needed me – that all of you did – so, after much reflection, I decided to come home. It hasn’t always been easy making that decision; my husband, Carey, wouldn’t follow me here. But I heeded the signs. I also knew that I had to heal my relationship with your father. It was hard on Robin, me leaving him when he was only young, but he was settled at school, and Lizzie wouldn’t hear of me taking him away.’

  ‘What?’ said Sylvie puzzled. ‘But I thought you left him when he was just a baby?’

  Gigi laughed uproariously. ‘Oh, darling, has Lizzie been telling porkies again? She loves to say that I left Robin when he was a baby, but no, he was settled at school and doing nicely. Lizzie doted on him, but I was going mad at Bledesford, absolutely bonkers with boredom and frustration, and Lizzie wouldn’t hear of me taking him away with me. So we came to a compromise. I left to make my way in the world, but came back every school holiday. Obviously, I wasn’t the best mother but neither,’ and here Gigi drew herself upright and looked sternly at Sylvie, ‘was I the worst. Whatever Lizzie might say.’

  Sylvie shook her head. ‘I had no idea.’ She thought about all the conversations over the years, when Lizzie had been scathing of Gigi. She realised she’d never really spoken to Robin or Wendy about the details of her father’s childhood – she had always just accepted Lizzie’s version of things as gospel.

  ‘Lizzie and I have always had a tricky relationship.’ Gigi shrugged. ‘We’ve never been close.’ She closed her eyes briefly, and Sylvie could see a flash of pain cross her face, before Gigi opened her eyes again and fixed Sylvie with a look. ‘Do you know, once she said to me, “I wish I’d never brought you home.” We were quarrelling, and saying the most terrible things to each other – I must have been fifteen, sixteen years old and just desperately wanting to get away from her. And I always remembered that. Like she’d had a choice about me. And made the wrong one.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Sylvie said, shaken. ‘I never realised any of this.’

  Gigi’s voice softened. ‘If you ask me about all my bad decisions, and whether I regret them, I can tell you that each and every one of them had something to teach me. If it weren’t for those lessons, I wouldn’t be where I am today. And I’m quite happy here, I must say. With you.’

  ‘But I thought you couldn’t care less about Bledesford?’ Sylvie asked tentatively. ‘Lizzie said you were only here because you had no other choice.’

  ‘Oh, darling, that’s not true! For better or worse, Bledesford is my home. I used to think I was a nomad, destined to travel the world in search of my tribe, but I came back here and discovered that Bledesford and this family is my own true north.’

  ‘Why aren’t you putting up a fight then?’ Sylvie challenged. ‘Why are you leaving the decision about selling the place up to Mum? God, I don’t know why she acts like such a martyr about everything, when no one asks her to be responsible for everything.’ Sylvie’s jaw clenched. ‘Making Dad give up his art, making him take on the responsibility for Bledesford, making the decision to sell it.’

  ‘Don’t be so hard on your mother – she’s a saint!’ Gigi said firmly, holding up her hand to stop Sylvie talking. ‘My God, I’ve just realised – you have no idea what really happened, do you? Well, let me say this.’ She leaned in to Sylvie and put a heavy hand on her knee. ‘I will forever be grateful to your mother, Sylvie. Wendy saved Robin, when he nearly died trying to continue with his art. That bloody agent of his . . . Lydia sodding Porter. If she didn’t actually top herself by accident, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone else did it on purpose.’

  ‘Wha— What do you mean, Gigi?’

  Gigi’s lips pursed. ‘You should speak to your father. It’s not my story to tell. And maybe you can delve into what he really thinks about selling, before you speak to Wendy.’

  ‘Oh, Gigi,’ Sylvie sighed. ‘There’s only two days left before they accept the developer’s offer. The National Trust surely won’t come back in time and, and—’ She felt hopeless all over again. ‘I’ve been an idiot, thinking it might work. It’s too late.’

  ‘But it’s not too late.’ Gigi squeezed her hand. ‘They haven’t sold the place yet. Do either of your parents know about your change of heart?’

  ‘No, but—’

  ‘I think you should tell them. And speak from in here.’ Gigi touched her chest. ‘Minds can always be changed, darling. That’s the beauty of being a grown-up. Talk to your father and tell him all your thoughts about saving the estate. He might be more receptive than you think. And ask him about his painting and why he gave it up.’

  ‘All right,’ said Sylvie. She reached up to give her grandmother a kiss on the cheek, and at the last moment enveloped her in a hug. ‘Thank you. Next chance I get, I promise.’

  ‘For goodness sake, darling – don’t stuff about. Go find him. Now.’

  ‘All right . . . I’m going, I’m going!’

  A surge of gratitude ran through her as she leaned in to kiss her grandmother. All those wasted years, she thought, when she considered Gigi to be nothing more than a dizzy old fool, when really her grandmother was one of the wisest, most centred women she knew. As she grabbed her bicycle and took off up the driveway, a bolt of clarity hit Sylvie: she was doing the right thing. She just knew it, deep down inside, and felt more sure of herself than she had in a very, very long time.

  30

  Victoria: London, 1941

  Victoria made a few last adjustments before pulling on the delicate, heavily beaded dress. She’d tried on several dresses from Mother’s collection, but this was the only one that really flattered her. Victoria was glad; she loved this particular frock, and remembered her mother wearing it once when she was very small. She imagined that she could still smell the subtle scent of Rose’s perfume wafting from the wisp-thin chiffon, and that comforted her immeasurably.

  She looked at herself critically in the mirror. The dress was cut unfashionably loose – most current designs all tended to nip in neatly at the waist, showing off a svelte, hourglass figure with the aid of various constricting undergarments – but she’d taken it in a little, and this dress was designed to be more free-flowing and dreamy, so it looked right. ‘What do you think, Lizzie?’ Victoria asked.

  Lizzie looked at her critically. ‘It’s fine,’ she said finally. ‘You look pretty as ever. Are you sure none of the other dresses work? Bad luck, darling. Most people don’t even show at seven weeks, I’m told.’

  It would just have to do, Victoria thought, biting her lip. She would let the Adderleys know that the dress carried sentimental meaning to her. If she said it had once been Rose’s, she knew they would drop the subject and leave her alone. Besides, she wasn’t the only one dipping into dated wardrobes in these times when shopping trips to buy new clothes were rare, and the heavy rationing meant they must all scrimp and save.

  ‘I’ll see you down there,’ Lizzie said, bustling out of the room in her tailored crepe-de-Chine suit.

  Victoria took a deep breath and checked her hair once more in the mirror, smoothing the curls around her face nervously.

  Emil. Just the thought of his name made her draw in a deep breath, and she felt her heart plummet into her shoes. Where was he now? And what was he thinking? Did he even remember that night at all? Or had he forgotten all about her?

  She cast her mind back to those first few nights and weeks after their encounter at Morton’s, the constant agony of wondering whether he would contact her. His hand on his chest under the streetlamp seemed to imply his return . . . And he’d had said that he would, when he bent over to kiss her hand on Lizzie’s doors
tep. Victoria had trusted him completely, had expected to hear from him the very next day in fact.

  But then nothing. What had happened?

  ‘Lionel, do you remember Mr Bruckner?’ she’d eventually asked her cousin, desperate for any news of him.

  ‘Who? Oh. Him.’ Lionel’s face had twisted in dislike. ‘What about him?’

  ‘Have you seen him again, in the club perhaps?’

  Lionel looked away, not quite meeting her eyes. ‘No. ’Fraid not, Tori.’

  She had gone to the café they had sat in that night, and once or twice even lingered around outside the gate to the park in the square. But as much as she longed to see him coming around the corner towards her, smiling in that wry, gentle way he had, he’d never again materialised. It was surreal, Victoria thought. Had she completely imagined it, the connection that she’d felt? The evening they had shared? She reluctantly admitted to herself that this might be possible, for Emil seemed to have totally disappeared.

  ‘He used you, darling,’ Lizzie had said. ‘It’s not the first time a fellow’s done so. It won’t be the last.’

  ‘Are you sure he hasn’t been in touch? There’s definitely been no message? Nothing at all?’

  Lizzie had shaken her head. ‘You know what I think, darling. It’s for the best.’

  Victoria wondered whether she should write to Rose and tell her what was happening. Just for comfort’s sake. Her mother would understand. But Lizzie seemed to be watching her like a hawk; she wasn’t confident that she could write a letter and send it unobserved.

  With one last, nervous pat to her wan and unpowdered cheeks, Victoria left Cousin Felicia’s bedroom and started to make her way downstairs.

  Oswald was waiting for her at the bottom, but as she approached he barely met her eyes. He held out his hand towards her distractedly.

  ‘Hello,’ she said, plucking up all her courage. She smiled at him brightly, slightly squeezing his hand as she joined him.

  ‘Good evening,’ Oswald said briskly, dropping her hand. ‘Shall we?’

  ‘Indeed.’ Victoria followed along at half a pace behind. This wouldn’t be as easy as Lizzie predicted, she thought grimly.

  When they entered the room, the intake of breath was audible. Twenty-five or so guests applauded, faces bright, milling around to congratulate them both.

  Mrs Adderley rushed over to kiss Victoria on the cheek. ‘Oh, my dear, you look simply wonderful, if a little pale . . . All the excitement, I expect . . .’ she chattered away.

  Oswald’s father was next, congratulating his son with a stiff pat on the back and nodding at her. Oswald’s younger sister Abigail hung back a little, the tight smile on her face telling Victoria she would not be so easy to win over as her mother.

  ‘We look forward to welcoming you to our family, Victoria,’ Oswald’s father said, patting down his moustache. ‘Now, my dear, can I tempt you with a glass of champagne?’

  Victoria smiled. ‘Thank you.’ She took a small sip and her stomach bucked like a wild horse; it took every ounce of her willpower not to spit it out.

  After the initial pleasantries, Victoria moved through the crowd of guests with Oswald, greeting people individually.

  Victoria kept a close eye on Oswald when he wasn’t by her side. She was making an effort to draw him away, but if she didn’t know better, she would think he was deliberately avoiding her.

  ‘A toast,’ called out Mr Adderley, addressing their guests, ‘to the happy couple!’

  ‘Hear, hear!’ came the drink-fuelled chorus, and Victoria locked eyes with her fiancé. But Oswald seemed to be studying something two inches above her head.

  Afterwards, music played on a gramophone in the corner, and a din of voices overtook the room. Victoria slipped her hand inside Oswald’s and pulled him outside onto the quiet terrace.

  ‘It’s so hot in here, I need some air . . . Where are you staying this evening?’ she asked, sipping her water carefully.

  Oswald looked discomfited. ‘At our apartment in Cheyne Walk. Why?’

  ‘Because, well, I was thinking, seeing as we’re to marry anyway, would it be so bad for us to spend some time together? Get to know each other a little?’ She smiled in a manner she hoped was suggestive.

  Two small frown lines appeared between Oswald’s eyes, and he seemed to be weighing up his words.

  ‘I know you perfectly well, Victoria,’ he said stiffly. ‘And, excuse me but I must speak plainly. We both know this is a marriage of convenience. Your family needs my father’s money, and my parents are looking for an entrée, as it were. This is not a love match.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said desperately. ‘I think you’re lovely. What makes you think we can’t be happy together?’ Emil’s face flashed before her, and she faltered, feeling suddenly faint.

  ‘Happy?’ Oswald grimaced. ‘As if anyone cares about that!’

  Victoria drew closer, smelling the aftershave on his neck, and was close enough to see the vein throbbing at Oswald’s temple.

  She decided to play her last (and only) card. ‘I don’t know why we’re talking like this . . . I find you very attractive. You find me attractive, don’t you?’ Victoria asked, hating herself, but parting her lips ever so slightly and opening her eyes wide. She put her hand on his chest, pressed herself against him. ‘Why wait until we’re married?’ she breathed, bending up towards his ear. ‘Please. Let me come visit you tonight. Your parents don’t need to know. We can even slip out later on. Just the two of us.’

  ‘Victoria,’ Oswald said firmly, pulling away from her with a look of contempt. ‘You’re very sorely mistaken if you take me for a fool. We’ll tie the knot, yes, and I’ll visit you in your bed so we can keep my parents happy. We’ll give them the grandchildren and heirs they so sorely crave, but that’s it. I won’t love you, I can’t. And I doubt you will ever love me either. You don’t even know who I am.’

  Oswald plucked her hand off his chest and stalked back inside.

  Victoria watched through the French windows, stunned, as Oswald moved through the room briskly. She saw his face light up as he spied his friend Walter over by the fireplace. Watching the glance that passed between the two men, Victoria suddenly saw it. It was subtle, but furtive; a slight complicity between the two of them, which spoke of something . . . hidden. Something intimate.

  Oh God, Victoria thought, wondering if she was going to be sick.

  She was in so much more trouble than she’d thought.

  Several days later Victoria followed the directions to the address Lizzie had scribbled down on a piece of paper.

  ‘Hello. I’m here to see a Doctor Smith?’

  ‘Come this way, love – through here.’

  She followed the tall nurse with her little white cap from the waiting room. They passed a couple of closed doors along the hallway, and Victoria breathed in the smell of disinfectant and something else beneath it, a sweet and sickly scent which curdled her stomach and made her feel nauseous again.

  ‘Don’t worry, it’s a simple operation,’ the nurse was saying. ‘We use sterile instruments to do a curette. There’ll be some bleeding afterwards and cramping, but we’ll give you something for the pain. This is no backyard surgery here. Our doctor has an interest in helping women like yourself; he’s very good. You paid Sybil first, at reception?’

  Victoria nodded – securing a hundred pounds hadn’t been easy, but Lizzie had cadged it from her and Reggie’s savings.

  ‘Please kindly remove all your clothes and put on this robe. You can lie down here.’ The nurse patted the table, which was covered with a white paper sheet. ‘I’ll be back in a few moments to check on you, and Doctor will be here shortly.’

  Victoria did as she was told. After folding her pale green dress carefully – the one with the sequinned shoulder pads and decorative jabot she’d made herself – she lay back on the pillow, covering herself with the sheet she’d been given. With a shudder, she told herself to stop looking at the i
nstruments on the table beside her – long, pointed steel implements, gleaming and glinting in the clinical light – and stared upwards at the ceiling. A plaster tile was coming away from the ceiling, a brown stain leaking onto the surrounding tiles. The bulb flickered above her ominously.

  ‘All right, love?’ asked the nurse, bustling back into the room. ‘You’re white as that sheet. Don’t worry, you’ll wake up soon and it’ll all be over. That’ll be a relief, won’t it? Now, just suck on this please, and you’ll soon be out like a light. You won’t feel a thing.’ The nurse proffered her a long black hose hooked up to a metal canister beside the bed, and Victoria placed the large clear face mask over her mouth. She started breathing in, her lips tingling as the gas filled her lungs. The promise of sweet oblivion, eyelids fluttering . . .

  But then her eyes snapped open. Victoria suddenly sat up, pulling the mask away, letting it clatter to the floor.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, her hands shaking with the cold. ‘I can’t do this.’

  As she swung her legs over the edge of the table, stars popped in her vision like fireworks, and she struggled to find her feet.

  The door opened and a man in a crisp white coat came into the room.

  ‘Nurse Barker, you told me the patient would be ready,’ he said curtly, snapping on a pair of gloves. ‘What’s all this?’

  With the gas already doing its job, Victoria wobbled on her feet, but she told herself to stay solidly upright. You can do this.

  Picking up her folded dress and her underwear, Victoria brushed past them both, grabbing her bag on the way out.

  ‘I’m sorry – I just can’t,’ she said over her shoulder, bolting down the corridor.

  ‘Wait!’ someone cried from behind, but Victoria kept running. On to the waiting room and out into the lobby, where she spied the ladies’ room on the other side. Thankfully it was clear. She dashed across the lobby, feeling her gown flap behind her, thinking that she might look comical if only she didn’t feel such a wretched fool.