Dressing the Dearloves

by Kelly Doust

  ‘Great, it’s all coming along . . . I finally took the script to the production company yesterday. Good news: they seem interested in going ahead.’

  ‘Goodness, that’s amazing. Let me know when you hear, won’t you?’

  ‘Of course. Hey, Sylvie, I’m actually calling because I have some news.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘You know how I gave you the details of Lady Clarissa’s carer?’

  ‘Yeah. I tried calling her, but there was never any answer.’

  ‘I know, the same happened to me, but then I thought I’d try again, just on the off-chance, before my meeting yesterday, and someone actually picked up.’

  ‘Was it her?’ Sylvie blew on her tea to cool it, then took a deep sip.

  ‘No – a friend, I think. But the good news is, she’s still alive. The woman I spoke to said she’d been moved into a nursing home about six months ago. She gave me all the details. Would you like them?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  As Sylvie took down the name and address, she felt a little thrill course down her spine. Everything felt so settled and certain – more than it had in a long time – but there was still this one loose thread: what had happened to Rose? She knew she had to follow this lead, just to see where it might end.

  She said goodbye to Rufus and rushed back upstairs, shaking Nick awake.

  ‘Hey,’ she said, reaching down to kiss his forehead and moving his fringe out of his eyes. ‘When you’ve sobered up, do you fancy taking a trip with me down to Dover?’

  ‘Sure.’ Nick smiled lazily, pulling her down onto the bed on top of him and stripping away her kimono. ‘But first, I have something more important to do . . .’

  As he bit her on the side of her neck, Sylvie stifled a giggle, before melting gladly into his arms.

  38

  Lizzie: April, 1963

  ‘No, no, definitely not,’ Lizzie declared, waving an imperious hand at the new plantings in the terracotta pots massed by the greenhouse. ‘They look dreadful. I wouldn’t have thought it of you, Hobbes, but geraniums? Truly vulgar. It’s a flower fit only for the lower classes. Get them out immediately.’

  Lizzie dismissed the gardener and picked up her secateurs and walked back into the greenhouse. She’d been trying to graft a particularly tricky cutting but was having no luck. Gardening was not in her blood, but she rather felt it was something she should do, as the Lady of Bledesford – after all, Rose had been an excellent gardener – so once a week, she tied a green apron around her and grimly tried to do her duty in the greenhouse.

  She’d just got started when she heard a tentative knock on the door and her hand slipped, the blade slicing her finger. She whirled around angrily. ‘Hobbes, for the last time—’ she started, and then stopped, astonished.

  Her daughter stood in the doorway of the greenhouse, wearing a travelling coat. Lizzie registered that Gigi’s skirt was disgracefully short and opened her mouth to say so before she realised Gigi was carrying a suitcase.

  Lizzie frowned. ‘And where do you think you’re going, young lady?’

  ‘Mum, I can’t do it any more. I can’t live here with you . . . I’m dying . . .’

  Lizzie held up a hand to interrupt her. ‘What did I say? I will not have you call me Mum. It’s Mother or Mama. And don’t be so dramatic, of course you’re not dying.’

  As she turned back to the bench, she could have sworn she saw Gigi roll her eyes at her, and she felt her blood pressure rising.

  ‘Mother,’ she said, ‘I’m going away. Up to London. Chelsea and I are going to go together. I can’t stand living in this mausoleum a minute longer.’

  Lizzie felt her temper rising and slammed the secateurs onto the workbench. ‘What are you talking about, you ridiculous creature? You can’t go to London. Where will you live, what will you do? I know that city like the back of my hand and it’s no fit place for a foolish girl like you.’

  ‘I’m not foolish,’ Gigi fired back. ‘I am twenty-two and quite capable of looking after myself.’

  ‘Really? We’ll see about that.’ Lizzie was furious. ‘Well, if you insist on going, you’ll take nothing from me, you ungrateful hussy. Why, even the clothes on your back are mine! It’s my money that bought them. Your suitcase, even. None of anything here is yours, Gigi.’

  ‘I’ll leave it behind then,’ Gigi said simply, dropping the suitcase and nudging it away with her foot.

  ‘Oh, don’t be so dramatic!’ Lizzie said scathingly. ‘I don’t understand you – how could you, Gigi?’ She felt her voice start to get shrill and hated herself for it, but she couldn’t help it. ‘I’ve put a roof over your head! I’ve fed and clothed you! And you’ve done nothing but defy me for my trouble. It’s more than you’ve ever deserved. Why are you always so very difficult? You have been, from the moment you were conceived. A constant thorn in my side, madam. I wish I’d never brought you home in the first place!’

  ‘Well, I’m so sorry, Mother, to have been so much trouble to you,’ Gigi said sarcastically.

  ‘Go, then, you selfish little bitch!’ Lizzie snarled, apoplectic. ‘See if I care!’ She seized the terracotta pot in front of her and threw it wildly across the greenhouse, where it hit the wall by the door and smashed into a thousand satisfying pieces. She barely saw, through a red-hot haze of tears and fury, Gigi turn on her heel and walk away from her.

  Lizzie stood with her arms on the bench, breathing heavily. After all she’d done to pull this place back together after the war, and all the work she had done to restore her family’s legacy, what with running Reggie’s business and writing a bestselling book . . . Was this to be her reward? It had been crippling, backbreaking work, but did the child ever appreciate it? No. She was an ungrateful, wayward little wretch, always forging her own path and arguing at every opportunity. She knew she’d been truanting school this week, even if she hadn’t yet proved it. If only the girl were sweet and pliable like her mother, Lizzie thought savagely. Victoria had been so much easier altogether to manipulate.

  And why did bad things always happen to her in this bloody greenhouse? It was here she’d overheard her own mother, the glamorous, untouchable Rose, carrying on outrageously with the hired help – on Lizzie’s birthday, no less, the day that she should have been paying attention to her own daughter. She shuddered as she remembered the shame and horror she’d felt, hearing their whispers and her mother’s moans. And then having to tell her father about her mother’s affairs . . . And it was here, years later, that he told her, weeping, what had really happened in Paris. The stupid man, she thought venomously. The stupid, stupid man, to let Rose go, to make up that pathetic lie that Rose was dead, when he should have made her come home. All that humiliation, all the whispers and the stares, and the sideways comments. Lizzie’s mouth twisted in dislike. Everything turned sour somehow, it always did. Victoria, Rose, Archie, and now Gigi too. All gone.

  Filled with impotent rage, Lizzie swept one arm across Rose’s grafting bench, toppling the pots and dirt with a vicious sweep and sending them crashing to the floor. Picking up the secateurs, she hacked in a fury at the flimsy orchid stems – abandoned for years but still, somehow, alive in the humid, foetid gloom – and ground the fragile flowers under the heel of her shoe. Raging through the greenhouse, she swept pots from the shelves, tore up plantings and screamed herself hoarse.

  Head ringing and arms aching from the exertion, Lizzie finally felt the rage leave her rigid body, a numb, ringing silence in its wake. It was over, and it was just her . . . again.

  With an effort, Lizzie straightened herself. She slowly took off the apron and dropped it on the ground, then dusted herself off, adjusting her twinset. She cast an eye about the shattered greenhouse, then closed and locked the door behind her, walking away without a backward glance. She would be fine. She always was, she thought grimly. She was a survivor. She was a Dearlove. She would go on.

  39

  ‘I’m looking for a Mrs Bruckner?’

>   ‘Of course. It’s Sylvie Dearlove, isn’t it – you rang earlier?’

  ‘Yes. And this is my friend. Nick.’

  ‘Hi there. Follow me, please.’

  They walked down the carpeted hallway of the nursing home, which was located on a clifftop overlooking the thrashing sea. This was not at all the sort of place Sylvie had imagined – Dover Heights Home was like a grand seaside resort. It had palatial rooms and full-length windows with views out to the beautiful white cliffs and choppy Channel beyond. The view was breathtaking in the late afternoon light, making Sylvie feel as though she were on a childhood holiday after a long trip in her parents’ car, and it had not even the slightest whiff of boiled cabbage.

  Holding Nick’s hand tightly in her own, she followed along behind the chatty nurse – ‘Just call me Wilma’ – who eventually knocked on one of the doors at the end of the corridor.

  They heard a soft voice answer, and then Wilma stepped aside and ushered them into the room. As she entered the gracious, high-ceilinged room, Sylvie saw an old lady with white hair sitting over by the window, looking out at the view, her hands folded placidly in her lap. As the woman turned to look at her, a strange feeling came over Sylvie, and she heard Nick gasp.

  My God, she looks so familiar. But how can that be?

  ‘They told me I had a visitor.’ The old woman had a low, cultured cut-glass accent – just like Lizzie, thought Sylvie dazedly. ‘You must be . . . well, you’re a Dearlove, aren’t you?’

  ‘Mrs Bruckner?’ Sylvie felt more than confused.

  ‘Yes, I’m Victoria Bruckner. My goodness . . .’ The woman smiled suddenly, and it was like the sun breaking through clouds. ‘You look so much like my mother, Rose – you’re the spitting image of her.’

  Sylvie felt her legs go weak, and she instinctively hung on to Nick, who was standing close beside her, barely breathing.

  ‘Rose? Rose was your mother? I . . .’

  The old woman cocked her head at Sylvie. ‘Yes, my dear. Rose Dearlove was my mother.’

  ‘But that means . . . you’re Victoria Dearlove, Lizzie’s sister?’

  The deeply lined face softened into a sad smile. ‘The very same. How is she doing, my dear? Is she still alive, then? Come in, sit down.’

  Sylvie advanced on trembling legs into the room. ‘She is, but Lizzie’s . . . well, she’s not well, to tell you the truth.’ Her great-grandmother seemed to have gone downhill rapidly since the day Sylvie showed her the grey silk dress; she’d stopped eating and getting out of bed, even for a trip around the grounds in the bath chair, and was too weak to say more than a few words . . . Sylvie swallowed. It couldn’t be long now. ‘But, I mean,’ she stuttered, ‘I always thought, well, we all thought, we were told, you were dead, killed during the London bombings, in the war . . .’

  ‘Evidently not. Although I must say, when I realised that was the assumption, I didn’t rush to correct it.’

  ‘I don’t understand. I was coming to see if I could find out more about Rose. I thought you were Lady Clarissa Hardcastle’s carer and she might have told you something about my great-great-grandmother, but now I find out that it’s you . . . Sorry,’ Sylvie said, feeling a bit weak. ‘I’m just a bit surprised. Do you mind if I sit down?’

  ‘No, no – please do.’ Victoria indicated the cosy-looking armchair in front of her.

  ‘Can I get you anything?’ asked Nick, hovering by the door, clearly uncertain whether to give Sylvie and Victoria some space. ‘Mrs Bruckner, would you like something?’

  ‘What a polite young man. Yes, maybe just a cup of tea, please.’ Victoria smiled at Nick.

  ‘Yes, Nick – tea. That would be good . . .’ Sylvie trailed off, her heart thumping wildly.

  ‘Sorry,’ Victoria said softly. ‘I’ve always half-expected something like this. But I’m sure it must be a shock. I didn’t think I was ever going to see another Dearlove again, although, at my age, not much surprises me any more.’

  ‘Mrs Bruckner—’

  ‘Victoria, please.’

  ‘Victoria. So, let me get this straight. You didn’t die in the Blitz, but you went missing . . . what happened? Lizzie told me that you were killed in a terrible bombing . . .’

  Victoria nodded. ‘I let her think that. We did not . . . Lizzie and I were not on the best of terms at that time. I did not want her back in my life.’

  Sylvie’s head was whirling, and she leaned forward. ‘And Rose – did you know about Rose? What happened to her? Is it true? Did she—’

  ‘Escape? From my father? Yes. My Aunt Birdie took me to see her. We were reunited in Paris, which is where she fled to. I’ve always felt bad that I was reunited with Mother, when Lizzie never got to see her again. But Birdie and I were worried she would tell our father, you see – she was such a favourite of his. And I was so afraid of him, back then. So it seemed for the best. Until my father died and then . . . well, it never seemed possible to bring it up with her. Lizzie was always so disapproving. After that time in Paris, my mother and I stayed in touch, through letters and messages Birdie passed on to me. We saw each other as much as possible, and then more after I . . . after the war. But she died about thirty years ago now. Cancer. She was very happy, though. She lived in the south of France with her husband, Henry, and went by the name Lady Flora Ball.’

  ‘Ball!?’ Sylvie exclaimed – she couldn’t wait to tell Nick – he’d be flabbergasted. ‘But what happened to you? Why did you come here, to Dover? You didn’t want to move to France as well?’

  ‘I . . . well, I had a love affair during the war, with my dear Emil. After the war, we decided to stay in England. Emil found a teaching job, and moving down here meant we were just across the Channel from Mother.’ Victoria’s eyes filled with tears. ‘He passed away as well, sadly . . . many years ago. Lizzie had disapproved of him terribly, thought he wasn’t good enough for me, and tried to keep us apart. But we were very happy together, for the better part of four decades. I’ve never regretted not being a Dearlove for all that time. Although,’ her gaze misted over, ‘I would so love to see Bledesford again, once more before I die.’

  Following Victoria’s gaze as she stared out the window, Sylvie realised that the old woman was far, far away, lost in her memories.

  ‘When I realised they thought I was dead, I was happy,’ Victoria said quietly, turning to look at Sylvie with her piercing blue eyes. ‘I knew that Lizzie would be distressed. She loved me so, in spite of everything. But I think she loved Bledesford more.’ She took a deep, shaky breath, and Sylvie leaned forward to take the old woman’s hands in hers.

  Victoria gave a small smile and continued. ‘Letting her think I was dead meant I could start again – start a new life with Emil. I was crazed with guilt – I’d lost a child, you see, not long before – and I was so angry with her. Emil and I went to Lady Hardcastle for help . . . Clarissa was a good friend of my mother’s, and a good friend of Birdie’s. She’d been so sweet to me when I went to visit Rose, and I had no one else to turn to . . . Birdie was away at the time, on one of her trips. We had such a wonderful connection, the two of us, and Clarissa was very supportive. After Birdie died, I clung to her terribly.’

  Nick tiptoed back in with cups of tea and put them down gently on the little table between them.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Victoria. ‘I looked after Lady Hardcastle for many years. She was like a second mother to me . . . or a third, after Birdie. Strange, isn’t it, that I felt like such a motherless child but I always seemed to have these wonderful women in my life, who loved and supported me,’ Victoria said, continuing on. ‘Anyway, when Emil passed away, I moved in with Clarissa, and we rubbed along nicely for a good ten years or so.’

  Sylvie smiled at the warmth in Victoria’s voice. ‘What else did you do with yourself during your life, if you don’t mind me asking? Did you have children, did you work?’

  ‘I . . .’ Victoria hesitated. ‘I had a child during the war but it’s a sad story. And then after the war,
well . . . it just didn’t happen for me and Emil. I was a seamstress, darling, and a dressmaker. Quite a good one, too. Emil and I had a small business. Very modest and not particularly lucrative, but we were so happy.’ Victoria looked out through the window and over the waves again, as a gull coasted on the wind outside, cawing disconsolately.

  ‘I recognise your dress, you know,’ Victoria said suddenly, a twinkle in her eye. ‘It’s one of mine. I made it.’

  Sylvie gasped, looking down at the tea dress she was wearing, with its small lilac sprigs. Shrugging off the Fair Isle cardigan she’d wrapped around her shoulders, she stood up and did a twirl. ‘I didn’t know that – is it?’

  ‘Very pretty. I still remember all my favourites. Look at that wonky dart, there – see? I made it myself, for some awful tea party Lizzie made me attend, and I remember I was so annoyed about going, I finished it in a hurry. I never was very sociable. Big gatherings always gave me such an attack of nerves.’

  Sylvie wondered what else she’d inherited from her great-great-aunt. ‘I found it in the attic.’

  ‘Oh, the attic!’ Victoria clapped her hands together joyously. ‘Are they all still there, all the clothes and accessories? I tried to sort them out once, and label everything if I knew where it was from, but it was such a big job. I gave up in the end, and then we moved to London.’

  ‘That was you? They are still there. I’ve been sorting through them myself.’ Sylvie hitched her chair closer to Victoria’s. ‘Can I tell you what we’re going to do?’

  As Sylvie caught Victoria up on all the recent news of Bledesford and they talked long into the afternoon, she marvelled at everything that was being revealed to her. She finally began to understand where her passion for clothes and dressmaking had been born – it was stored in her very blood. Somehow it gave Sylvie the confidence to know she was on the right path after all.

  ‘I just can’t believe it,’ she sighed, taking a deep breath, as Nick returned with a second round of tea and biscuits. ‘I always thought everything about my family was so perfect, but now I’ve found out there were all these secrets . . .’ Sylvie shook her head.