The Dressmaker’s Secret

by Charlotte Betts

  My mouth was dry as I extracted a green leather book with a brass clasp and the name ‘Rose Langdon’ embossed in gold on the cover. I hugged the book tightly against my breast.

  I had found my mother’s diary.

  Chapter 29

  August 1821

  London

  I attempted to read Mother’s diary in the carriage on our return to London but after a few tantalising pages the rolling motion of the coach made me feel so queasy I was forced to stop.

  ‘My spectacles are packed,’ said Aunt Maude, ‘so we’ll have to be patient.’

  We arrived in Grosvenor Street in time for supper.

  ‘I expected you to return before this,’ said Father, his mouth pursed in disapproval. ‘My ball is the day after tomorrow. I trust everything is in hand?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ I said, ‘and I don’t anticipate any difficulties.’

  ‘I hope not,’ he growled.

  When he’d left the supper table for his club, I heaved a sigh of relief and soon I was sitting on the window seat in my bedroom opening Mother’s diary. It was strange to read her private thoughts and after an hour or so I began to feel as if I knew her. It brought tears to my eyes to see her comments about me, her ‘pretty, clever little girl’, and her hopes and dreams for me as I grew up. Even if she’d had a lover, it was clear that she’d loved me. She wrote also of her joy when she discovered that she was to have another child and hoped it would make Frederick happy:

  I fear what he will say if I should bear another daughter. Although he is fond of little Harriet he makes sharp comments about me not doing my duty if I don’t provide him with an heir.

  I skimmed through the pages, taking little notice of the accounts of parties and social visits, except when she mentioned that Lord Cosgrove’s house had been broken into and an important Russian icon stolen.

  So many thefts! Not a month passes without another of our acquaintance being robbed by this impudent thief. There is a deal of speculation that the perpetrator may be one of our own set and that makes me look askance at our friends. The thief has a sense of humour since he leaves a pen-and-ink sketch of an empty picture frame in place of the work he’s stolen.

  Presumably, at that point, Mother had not been involved with the thief who later became her lover. I read on.

  I cannot bear to envisage Frederick’s rage if one of his paintings were to be stolen. His love for his collection borders on the obsessive and he certainly values it more than he loves his wife or child.

  This distressed me but I could only assume she exaggerated. Then came the entry about Piers’s birth.

  Frederick is pleased with me and I am thankful that I have come through the ordeal with no more than the usual difficulties. My darling son, Piers Frederick George Langdon, made his appearance at dawn this morning, two weeks early. He is so tiny but already very dear to me. Sweet Harriet kissed his little cheek and offered to give him her precious Annabelle. In respect of my children I am the luckiest woman alive. They mean everything to me and make up for the rest.

  My heart was very full as I read that entry. But what did she mean by ‘the rest’? No matter what might have happened later, Mother had clearly loved her children. Nevertheless, something had happened to drive her into the depths of such despair that she had abandoned me when she drowned herself.

  I read the next entries about my little brother’s increasingly sickly constitution in the unhappy knowledge that it was to lead to tragedy.

  The poor little mite suffers from colic and screams himself into sobs several times a day. Frederick wants to send him to a wet nurse but I’m determined to continue nursing him myself. I cannot bear to be parted from my poor babe. Bravely, I argued with Frederick. He was very harsh to me and left the house with much ill feeling between us. I am grateful to have dear Aunt Maude to comfort me.

  It was apparent Mother hadn’t taken her parental responsibilities lightly. My heart bled for her as I read about Piers’s continual colds and his general failure to thrive, despite her best efforts. And then came the terrible day I’d expected to read about.

  My angel has been taken from me. I’m ashamed because I slept well for the first time since his birth since I didn’t hear him cry during the night. When I lifted him from his cradle in the morning I knew at once that he had gone. He was already cold and not my Piers anymore. Little Harriet doesn’t understand and cries piteously for her baby brother, while Frederick rages and blames me for not sending his son to a wet nurse.

  I touched my cheek and discovered it was wet with tears. The entries for the following months were infrequent but I read of Mother’s continuing grief and of my parents’ disintegrating marriage. Father coped with his sorrow by blaming her for their son’s death. His temper flared at the slightest provocation and I was shocked when I read about the day he’d hit her, splitting open her lip. Two days later he hit her again.

  The floodgates of his rage are opened. Frederick says I disgust him and he cannot bear me in his sight.

  Horrified, I read on, holding the diary with fingers that shook with sorrow and rage.

  I’m rarely able to leave the house since I usually have a black eye, a bruise or a cut cheek. Last night Aunt Maude tried to defend me and was punched for her kindness. I cried and pleaded with him when he threatened to put her out in the street, for she has no income and nowhere to go.

  Sickened, I put the diary down. I couldn’t bear to read any more until I’d considered what I’d learned. Father was irascible at times. I’d seen him push Alessandro down the steps but I hadn’t imagined he was truly violent.

  Confused, I allowed Daisy to undress me for bed, and then lay sleepless in the dark while I tried to make sense of it all.

  In the morning, as soon as I was dressed, I reread some of the diary passages, trying to determine if Mother had really been mad or savagely mistreated instead. She appeared to be of sound mind but I’d seen Father’s sorrow when he’d told me about their disintegrating marriage. I didn’t know what to believe and read on. I gripped the diary tightly when I came to the entry about the theft of Lord Beaufort’s miniatures.

  At the Ashworths’ rout this evening the assembled company were outraged to hear that the Picture Frame Thief has struck again. Three miniatures of the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia, daughter of King Philip II of Spain, have been stolen from Lord Beaufort. Only two weeks before Frederick and I, amongst others, were his house guests at Little Braxton Manor where he had proudly showed us the newly acquired works.

  Puzzled, I rested the diary on my knee. The miniatures had been stolen not long before Mother had drowned. Since she wrote her innermost thoughts in a diary she kept hidden, why had she as yet made no mention of her lover, the Picture Frame Thief? I was still pondering on whether she’d had a lover at all when Aunt Maude tapped on my door.

  ‘Are you ready to go to Gunter’s?’

  I’d completely forgotten our appointment to inspect the sugar-paste centrepiece we’d ordered for the supper table at the ball. Distractedly, I tucked the diary under my pillow and put on my bonnet.

  In the carriage Aunt Maude said, ‘Have you read the diary?’

  I nodded. ‘Not all of it. I’d like you to read it later and tell me if it marries with your recollections.’

  The sunshine was hot when we arrived at Gunter’s Tea Rooms, where a great number of vehicles were drawn up in the shade of the trees in Berkeley Square. Ladies sat in their carriages eating ices, while their escorts leaned against the railings nearby, chatting to other young bloods. Waiters dodged through the traffic, bringing the ices from the tea rooms to the carriages before they melted.

  ‘I suggest you wait here, Aunt Maude,’ I said. The heat didn’t suit her and she looked weary. ‘Once I’ve approved the centrepiece, we’ll have an ice.’

  ‘That will be delightful, dear.’

  I crossed the road to the tea rooms but Mr Gunter was busy with another customer so I sat down to wait.

  Two ladies
were drinking tea and gossiping at the table beside me.

  ‘My sister was at the Drury Lane Theatre last night,’ said a lady in a yellow muslin dress. ‘Mr Elliston was performing in a pageant of the Coronation and he impersonated the King so well it was like a portrait. And that wasn’t the only interesting event of the evening. The Queen and her party arrived and a whisper went around that she became unwell during the performance.’

  My ears pricked up at the mention of her.

  ‘Sick with jealousy, I expect,’ said the lady’s companion, busy eating a macaroon.

  ‘Still, she stayed to the end and Augusta said she rose and curtseyed to the pit, galleries and boxes. “Positively haggard” was how my sister described her; a complete figure of fun with her wig crooked and her crumpled dress all anyhow.’

  My heart bled for the Queen but I didn’t overhear any more since Mr Gunter greeted me then. He led me to a workroom where the centrepiece was laid out on a clean cloth. ‘As you see,’ he said, ‘we have yet to make the second elephant and the fountains are under construction.’

  ‘I believe I mentioned that the King intends to honour us with his presence at our ball?’

  ‘We’ll work through the night to ensure the piece will be ready for tomorrow,’ he assured me.

  ‘It’s exquisite,’ I said.

  Mr Gunter bowed.

  ‘And now I shall purchase two of your excellent ices.’

  I returned to the carriage followed by a waiter bringing a violet sorbet for Aunt Maude and a neige aux pistaches for me.

  We gave our full attention to our ices for a moment. Then I said, ‘Aunt Maude, did Father ever treat you violently?’

  She paused in the act of catching a dribble of violet sorbet with her tongue. Her eyes filled with tears. ‘I tried to stop him from hurting Rose. He was terribly angry and threw me to the ground and kicked and beat me.’

  So Mother’s account of that event, at least, was true. Softly, I touched my aunt’s papery cheek while anger at my father burned inside me like a red-hot ember.

  ‘It wasn’t the first time,’ she said, ‘nor the last. He also threatened to put me in the workhouse.’ Her chin quivered while she regained control of herself. ‘I’ve never dared to flout his wishes again.’

  ‘He’s been kind to me,’ I said, ‘and given me so much.’

  ‘Frederick rarely does anything unless it suits him.’

  ‘Do you remember when Lord Beaufort’s miniatures were stolen, before Mother died?’

  ‘It was in the papers,’ said Aunt Maude. ‘There was a terrible furore.’

  ‘Father told me that the so-called Picture Frame Thief was Mother’s lover.’

  Aunt Maude shook her head decisively. ‘Ridiculous! Rose never had a lover.’

  ‘Father and Sarah told conflicting stories. Father said Mother had hidden the miniatures in her luggage. Sarah said there was little of value among Mother’s possessions. She ran away with me, taking the luggage, because she was expecting Mother to join her later.’

  ‘I don’t understand that at all.’ Aunt Maude frowned. ‘Rose would have told me what was happening if I’d been there. I’ll always regret I wasn’t at Grosvenor Street when she died.’

  ‘Where were you?’

  ‘Staying with my cousin’s daughter. Her children, all eight of them, had measles, one after the other. She was utterly distracted and needed help to nurse them. Rose insisted I went and told me to stay away until Frederick’s anger abated.’ Tears spilled down her cheeks. ‘When I returned, she was dead.’

  Chapter 30

  On the morning of Father’s ball I awoke at dawn, propped uncomfortably against my pillows where I’d fallen asleep the previous night still reading the diary. My dreams had been unbearable: visions of Mother’s distress at the continuing misery of her marriage and frightening nightmares full of harsh voices and childhood memories of being mistreated by Joe. I remembered being shaken so hard my teeth rattled and then being shut in a cupboard.

  I was tired and irritable, particularly as I knew the day would be fully taken up with overseeing the final arrangements for the ball. I groaned at the thought that the last guest probably wouldn’t leave until dawn the morning after. I decided to stay in bed for a little longer. I picked up the diary from the pillow beside me and began to read again.

  I must escape from the dread that overcomes me every time Frederick comes home. I am taking Harriet with me to Langdon Hall for a respite.

  And then, three days later:

  I hardly know how to write this. My thoughts are utterly disordered as I grapple with this terrible discovery. I cannot settle to anything for worrying about what to do. I took Harriet out for a long walk to use up my nervous energy but on the way back her poor little legs couldn’t carry her any further. I held her in my arms and our tears mingled. I love her so much and I’m very frightened of what I must do.

  There was a tap on the door then and Daisy entered with my morning chocolate.

  ‘Good morning, miss,’ she said. ‘I guessed you’d be awake early today. The servants have been up since before dawn, busy with the preparations, and the kitchen’s already humming.’

  Daisy returned downstairs and I scanned the diary as I sipped my chocolate, reading that Mrs Digby had called and, for a short while, Mother had enjoyed her cheerful company. There were accounts of supervising the turning out of the preserves cupboard, discussions with the housekeeper as to what new linen must be purchased from London and a host of other household trivia. But then I came to a passage that made me sit bolt upright.

  I’ve tried not to think about what I found. I couldn’t even write about it before, almost as if I thought it would go away if I pretended it had never happened. But I did find it and there are some things you cannot ignore, no matter what the consequences.

  It was something Jane Digby mentioned to me that made me curious. One of my servants, a new scullery maid, had been found in a state of collapse after the others below stairs frightened her with tales of a ghostly priest walking the corridors of Langdon Hall at night, rattling his chains. They told her he’d been shut up in a hidden chapel and had died screaming, with no one to hear him. I told the poor girl there was no secret chapel and gave her the afternoon off.

  When I related the tale to Jane, she shook her head. She said her brother had been Frederick’s friend when they were boys and that they had discovered a hidden chapel at Langdon Hall. Frederick had made her brother swear never to reveal the secret but, years later, he had recounted their adventure to Jane.

  A secret chapel! But Father had distinctly told me there was no chapel and the priest had escaped out of the window. Why would he wish to hide it? The days of illicit Catholic priests were long gone. Or had Jane’s brother been spinning her a yarn? The answer had to be in the diary.

  Curiosity, and a desire not to dwell on my miserable marriage, set me to the task of searching for the chapel. I poked around in all the obvious places, the attic and the cupboard under the stairs, and spent several hours examining the panelling, searching for a secret door. Then I had the idea of looking for the deeds of Langdon Hall, hoping there might be an old plan showing the chapel’s location. Frederick kept folios of legal papers in his study and that was when I discovered his secret.

  I looked up as Daisy brought in a ewer of hot water.

  ‘May I help you dress now, miss?’

  ‘Will you come back in ten minutes?’ I said. I couldn’t bear to stop reading when a secret was about to be revealed.

  Daisy bit her lip. ‘Mrs Hope asked me to be quick. She needs me to dust the ladies’ retiring room for the ball tonight. And I believe you’re supervising the footmen while they clear the drawing-room furniture? They’ll start that any minute now.’

  Reluctantly, I rose from my bed. ‘I’ll wear the yellow muslin today, Daisy.’

  ‘Very good, miss. And your white satin ballgown is all ready for you for this evening.’ She poured hot water into the wash bowl and lai
d out the soap and flannel. I barely listened to her chatter as she passed me a towel, stockings and shift while I wondered what it was Mother had found. Might it have been an ancient plan of Langdon Hall or could she have found the chapel itself? I started at a touch on my arm.

  ‘Your shoes, miss.’

  I smiled distractedly. ‘Sorry, Daisy. I was daydreaming.’

  I sat at the dressing table while she brushed my hair. Suppose Mother had discovered the priest’s skeleton in the chapel? But although that would have been unpleasant, it wouldn’t have inspired such fear.