The footsteps stopped halfway along the aisle.
“Inside a week, I am thinking,” said Scottie, his voice muffled as if he was talking into his equipment.
“That is too long,” said Madame, but quieter. Likely she was peering over Scottie’s shoulder. “Can you not be finished tomorrow? Or the next day?”
“I can no’ force the spiders to spin faster. Or the looms to make test cloth.” His voice sharpened. “What are you after doing below my bench?”
“Looking for my keys. I may have dropped them up here.”
“You haven’t seen them since yesterday?”
“I was here this morning.”
“Och, it might be so.”
The hunt went on a few more minutes before Madame left without her keys. As the outer door closed, Serephene let go a deep breath. “If she’d caught us, I wouldn’t give a slub of old cotton for my apprenticeship. I don’t like that she’s lost those keys. If someone stole them, they could be trying to reach Scottie’s work in the middle of the night, when he’s not here.”
“He doesn’t live in here?”
“There’s a bunk built above the stern window, but mostly he sleeps on Madame’s top floor.” Serephene twisted her hands together. “I won’t let anyone steal his work until Madame has paid him for it. With that money he can build a proper workshop back in Scotland, and hire workers.”
If he had a proper workshop, Maddie surmised, he’d been one step further toward being an eligible suitor for her friend. Not that any workshop smaller than a Steamlord’s foundry was likely to sway Lord AcquaTiempe. But she didn’t want to be the one crushing Serephene’s hopes, so she said instead, “There would still be the door porters to get past. Can you tell me now what’s so special about this fabric, apart from that it’s half spider-bat silk? I mean, they’re insanely rare and exotic but the fabric’s not really earth-shattering apart from the novelty factor.”
“I’ll show you when it’s perfect.” Serephene’s eyes shone with secret delight. “Then tell me it’s not earth-shattering. And you’ll be the first fashion reporter to have seen it being produced.” She opened the pocket door a crack, listened and looked, then opened it wider. “She’s really gone. We’d better get to our lunch, or I won’t be in time for my first cutting lesson. Scottie, will you come to lunch with us?”
He turned his sea-blue eyes to her. “Nae, my lass. I canna leave the work just now. Bring me a bite?” Serephene nodded, pausing as she passed him to allow for a quick touch of hands. Maddie forbore to roll her eyes.
After a lively luncheon with some seamstresses and a pair of lace-makers over from Burano, they headed back to the atelier for Serephene’s afternoon lesson. She took Maddie up the stair to show her a rich purple satin. It was destined to become the main body of an evening gown. Serephene explained in detail which irregular piece of muslin would support what piece of the finished garment. “Skirt side panels and the train on this table, bodice front and back on this one, with interfacing of this cotton over here. And the external corset in that glittering gold brocade, which will set Nonna and the aunts a-flap, but which I will tell her is all the rage in London this year. Do you think I should finish it in seed pearls or loops of fine gold chain?”
“No need to worry about finishing until it’s cut and basted together,” said Maddie, privately thinking the bodice’s extremely low cut would raise far more objections from the female relations. But there was no denying Serephene had a daring style all her own. These past two days, coming to the atelier in a plain blue shirtwaist and matching kerchief, were the simplest Maddie had ever seen her dressed. And just when she was involved in an intense flirtation with an inventor, too. Most women would dress more extravagantly than usual to catch a man’s attention. Not Serephene, though; she did everything counter to expectations. Maddie admired the brocade and then slid away as Madame Frangetti sailed into the cutting room with her assistant scurrying along behind.
For a while she sat in the break room with a cappuccino and her notebook, outlining a how-to article for the home seamstress on cutting dresses from a muslin pattern, or body block, until Zaneta hurried in from the workroom, one blond curl dangling from under her blue head-kerchief.
“Maddalena, vieni. Come. Madame goes to choose lace. The secure room she is unlocked.”
Maddie stuffed the notebook into her skirt pocket and followed, pausing behind a fitting room curtain until Zaneta decreed the coast clear. Then they hurried on, sneaking behind Madame’s back, to see the most precious costumes of all.
Chapter Seven
WHEN THEY WERE both inside Madame’s office, Zaneta pulled the door almost closed. “Someone could see us and tell Madame we were sneaking in. She keeps the secrets worse than ever now. She has locked half the top floor and the lowest cellar too. The laundresses hear noises from in there. They think she’s making counterfeit money or something. I think she spies for the French. Her great-grandfather was a big Napoleoni, got rich from the French occupation. Pah!” All the while she fumbled with a bookshelf stacked high with ledger-boxes. Something clicked and the wall swung inward, revealing a room filled with shadowy figures. “In here. No flames allowed.” She twisted a dial on the wall and a long row of light-pipes opened in the ceiling, drawing down the golden afternoon sunlight to shimmer from a thousand faceted gems. Maddie caught her breath.
The mannequins displayed costume after fabulous costume. Here a French Renaissance couple’s outfits in white satin brocade, glittering with tiny diamonds set in silver flowers. There an Arlecchino, with each gem-tone panel outlined in hammered gold. Oriental costumes dripped with emeralds and golden tassels. Pannier-gowns and frock coats posed along the back wall, their wide skirts and narrow breasts encrusted with gold and jewels. If the rubies on that Sun King outfit were real, a whole family of thieves could retire for life. Probably they were spinels, worth a tenth of real rubies, but there were so many they weighed down the coattails despite the three layers of interfacing that Zaneta showed her, twisting the long tail back to demonstrate the hand-quilted stabilizing seams.
“See?” said the seamstress proudly. “I can make any cloth be strong and pretty together. You will tell Serephene, yes? I could work for her.”
“She won’t be setting up her atelier in Venice, you know. More likely in England. Or Scotland.”
“Venetia, she is boring.” Zaneta laid the coat-tail over her wrist to give Maddie a better look. “All my life is the same people. Besides, in Scotland is more men like il maestro up there on the roof, yes?” Her free hand made an extravagant gesture that Maddie had no trouble interpreting as approval.
In pretending to examine the stitches, Maddie made sure TD got an extra close-up of the spinel embroidery. “Who is this one for?”
“The English Consul.” Zaneta shrugged. “He thinks it’s funny to dress up as a French king.”
“What’s his wife wearing?”
Zaneta didn’t know. “It must be from some other atelier. Or maybe from England.”
Beyond the Sun King’s glittering coat stood a creamy taffeta gown with wide, folded-back panniers. It was encrusted with spun-gold embroidery and dotted with gleaming gems of an odd bluish-green that seemed, in their depths, to shade into red.
“Zaneta, do you know what these stones are?”
“This is called alexandrite. It’s like magic: it turns a different colour in candlelight or gaslight. The whole dress changes if she walks through a door.”
“Which noble ordered this one?”
“The Russian Consul’s wife. Alexandrite is only found in Russia, and even there it’s very rare and expensive. No other Consul’s wife will have so many stones, or so rare. It will be a triumph for Russia.”
Maddie tipped her head for TD’s pictures and made quick mental notes about the gown so she could describe it in a fashion column. Another part of her mind wondered why women like the Consul’s wife—and, to a lesser degree, like her own mother and grandmother—would wish to tur
n a night of dress-up revelry into a high-stakes competition. She had once thought Serephene exactly that sort, and how wrong she had been!
Looking again at the characters from Pinocchio, she was struck by their simplicity of design, made incongruously opulent by finest velvets and taffetas, with silver or gold netting supporting their collars and cuffs. Seen all together they made a dazzling array even on a gloomy afternoon. At the far end were fairy gowns of every hue: grass green and lily white, palest mauve and primrose-pink, long skirts and short, bodices embroidered and appliquéd with flower patterns and sprays of gemstones. Each gown supported gauzy wings in pastel shades and silver leaf.
A blue fairy stood a little removed from the rest. Midnight blue satin formed the underskirt, wreathed in gauzy summer-sky hues, each layer shot with gold and silver and tiny flecks that might be diamond chips. The wings of azure organza were lightning-streaked in what looked almost like melted platinum. Maddie stepped up for a closer look at the ice-blue bodice and saw, instead of dainty floral sprays of gems like the other fairy bodices, a heavy collar that alternated strips of white diamonds with strips of brilliant blue lapis lazuli, all stitched side-by-side along the neckline much as they might have lain on the ancient Queen Nefertiti’s breast.
An Egyptian collar of diamonds and lapis lazuli? Surely not the same one Lady Sarah Peacock had wheedled out of Baron Bodmin? Maddie swallowed a surge of irritation. Just because the necklace was here didn’t mean Sarah was. She could have sold it when she was in Venice last year. She had briefly used Maddie’s real name then, but she’d promised never to do so again.
“Zaneta, this neckline is lovely and unusual. Is it going to a Consulate?”
“Is for an English noble lady,” said Zaneta. “I made these organza wings with my own hands. Is nice, yes?”
“Very nice. Do you know who she is? What her name is?”
“All the nobles come to Carnevale under false names, to keep scandal from their real name.” Zaneta tucked her blond curl away. “But I know her. She was here last year too, for the traveling suits. Another English woman who takes no maid to travel. Pah. Hotel maids don’t dress you properly. Especially for Carnevale.”
“So who is she?”
“La Signorina Madeleine Main-Bearing.” As Maddie choked, Zaneta looked at her with curiosity in the deep brown eyes. “You may know her?”
Chapter Eight
LADY MADELEINE MAIN-Bearing? Sarah Peacock was using Maddie’s own name again? But she had promised to never use it again!
Questioned, Zaneta did not know where la signorina was staying. “Only she had the last fittings this morning and will send a messenger for the fairy dress.”
“When will the messenger come to collect it?”
Zaneta didn’t know that either. She looked curiously at Maddie. “This is important?”
“Yes. But I can’t say why. In case I’m wrong. Thanks for showing me all this.” Fuming, Maddie went to find Serephene, who was bent over her long table of rich purple. “I need to find a customer’s hotel. They might not tell me but maybe you could find out from the office?”
Serephene glanced up. “Your cheeks are glowing so red I can see them through the veil. What’s going on?”
“A woman who impersonated me—the real me—last year, is back in Venice. Her Carnevale costume is downstairs right now. I have to find out if she’s truly using my name again and make her stop.”
Her friend held up both hands, palms out. “All right. No need to shout, darling. I’ll go down to the piano nobile immediately and ask Madame’s assistant. What name is the costume listed under?”
“Zaneta said they’re all under aliases. It’s the blue fairy with the diamond-and-lapis neckline. Surely the women will have had a good goggle at the jewels while they were being sewn on.”
Maddie followed Serephene downstairs, standing by like a silent raven while the assistant and several fitters crowded around the questioner. They all spoke at once, fast and excited, with hands shaping out a sleeve in the air or indicating the width of a pannier. Two of the fitters got into a passionate argument, arms waving and voices too high and fast for Maddie to follow. Serephene got into the heated discussion too, and for a few minutes they all leaned together intently. Then Serephene said, into a moment of relative silence, “Pavone? Sei sicuro?”
The fitters looked at each other and nodded. “La Contessa Pavone.”
Serephene turned to Maddie. “Does the name Peacock mean anything to you? Countess, or Lady, Peacock?”
“Yes. By the Great Cog, it does. Where,” Maddie asked through gritted teeth, “is she staying?”
This the fitters did not know. Before the assistant could—if she so intended—offer to look it up, a bell jangled by the marble staircase. The fitters scattered, the assistant adjusted her tape measure, and Serephene yanked Maddie into the closest upward stair. “Madame’s coming,” she whispered.
While Serephene finished her cutting, Maddie scribbled a column for a future filing, waxing lyrical about the Russian Consul’s wife’s alexandrite dress and the English Consul’s spinel-covered Sun King coat.
They left at the appointed time, though not before Serephene had slipped up to the roof to bid Scottie goodnight. Outside, a fine mist had settled over the city. Despite the chill, Maddie insisted they wait for Sarah’s messenger to arrive. They found seats under an umbrella at a pavement café. There they sat for the rest of the afternoon while the damp cold gnawed at their ankles and stiffened their fingers. They sipped rich, dark coffee, tipping the gloomy waiter excessively each time to ensure he’d return, and watched the atelier’s main entrance.
Finally, as the shadows of the tall buildings crept toward the canal, Maddie gave up. No messenger had carried out any parcel that afternoon, let alone one large enough to contain the blue fairy’s wings. She wearily waved a hand to Fanto who, apparently impervious to the wet, was gossiping with other gondoliers a little ways down the canal. He came promptly to the landing stage and handed them into their seats with his usual grace. The tide was so high that the gondola’s stern-post scraped the underside of the bridge.
As the rain let up and the setting sun glowed golden beneath the clouds, Fanto took them along the Grand Canal the whole way, shifting his sleek, black craft around lumbering barges and private steam-launches whose varnished hulls gleamed almost as bright as their brass fittings. The white façade of the Palazzo Grassi was being decked out in Carnevale bunting all across its two levels of marble arches and balconies. Even the stacked stonework of its landing area carried garlands of greenery between newly-lit torches.
“Nonna is invited there on Tuesday,” said Serephene. “I’ll have to go. I hope I can get the purple gown finished in time. I hear they’ve covered the whole central courtyard in a glass roof for the occasion, so that not even rain can interfere with the festivities.”
As they approached the turning into Rio de San Maurizio and Nonna’s palazzo, the gondola was blocked by a long line of private launches waiting to unload their passengers at the Russian Consulate. Bear-hatted security guards marched along the landing stage to compel cooperation. Fanto yelled something at the driver of a private launch, to which the driver responded with an unmistakably rude gesture. While waiting for the next launch to move and let their gondola into the side canal, Maddie looked at the gleaming boats with the first, mild curiosity she had felt about anything since hearing Sarah Peacock’s name. Was the English Consul among the guests tonight? Was his lady wife there too, wondering and scheming and maybe trying to bribe a maid to tell her what the Russian Consul’s wife would be wearing?
Serephene sat up abruptly. “Creaking Cogs! I forgot this dinner was tonight. I should never have stayed with you so long. Nonna will be furious.” She snatched off her blue kerchief, flung her lace shawl over her head and shoulders, and was off the boat the instant it slipped into her family’s water-gate. As she hurried up the stone steps to the house proper, she called back, “Same time in the morning!
”
Fanto carried on down the side canal. “We take the longer way tonight, signorina,” he said, “or wait again for the nobili to let us pass. Now you are too quiet. Was this not a happy day?”
Maddie shrugged. Soon or late was all the same for her state of churning worry. All afternoon in the chill damp, she had thought of nothing but Sarah. Was Sarah causing a Cairo-like scandal under the Main-Bearing name? Or worse, was she conducting fashion espionage as Madeleine Main-Bearing? What would Father say if it came to his ears? He should really be told, this time, instead of kept in the dark like last year. He might, being the Third British Steam-Lord, have that blasted Sarah removed entirely from Venice.
Much as Maddie enjoyed the idea of Sarah waking up one morning on her involuntary way to a remote Scottish isle, she let go the fantasy on a sigh that blew her veil almost straight out from her nose. Father at last trusted her to handle her life, and that trust would be tarnished if she called upon his resources, especially if the imposture turned out to be a false alarm. There had to be a way to find that scheming Sarah on her own, and learn what she was up to in Venice. Then, maybe, she would call upon Father to scare Sarah away from the Main-Bearing name forever.
As her gondolier called a greeting to one of his compatriots in passing, she had her starting point. “Fanto, you talk to all the gondolieri, yes? If I describe a woman, an English woman, do you think you might find out which hotel she’s staying at?”
Chapter Nine
THE FORMAL DINING room of the Hotel Gritti was all but deserted that evening when Maddie went down, wearing the quite respectable crimson velvet evening gown Serephene had made for her over the summer. The velvet had come as a welcome surprise, for Serephene had made the promise last spring, on the very cusp of summer, mentioning lightweight silk. But a message had arrived in the fall, saying a dress suitable for Christmas festivities would be waiting for Maddie at Claridge’s Hotel for Discerning Gentlewomen, when next she should pass through London. She had been very glad of that warm velvet during the festive weeks spent with Madame Taxus-Hemlock’s German family in their fantastical Bavarian castle amid the snow-topped crags, and she was glad of it again here in damp, gray Venice six weeks later. Even though the gown had cost her—was costing her—this assistance with Serephene’s rushed apprenticeship.
Maddie Hatter and the Timely Taffeta Page 4
