The Dressmaker’s Secret

by Charlotte Betts

  ‘I heard that,’ said Daisy. ‘If I’d known you were caught up in it I’d have been that worried…’ She shook her head. ‘You’d better take everything off, miss.’ She poured clean water into the basin and set out towels and soap.

  Once I was clean I hurried to see Aunt Maude and found her sitting in a chair by her bedroom window.

  ‘Thank goodness you’re back!’ she said. ‘I was worried.’ She looked me up and down. ‘I saw your clothes were in a dreadful state when I spied you creeping in by the area door.’

  I smiled. ‘You don’t miss anything, do you?’

  Aunt Maude looked at me with her head on one side, like a robin. ‘You seem surprisingly cheerful considering you’ve been to a funeral.’

  ‘I have so much to tell you,’ I said. ‘The procession turned into a riot and I was caught up in it.’

  She pressed a hand to her chest. ‘You’re not harmed?’

  I shook my head. ‘But Alessandro was with me and he was wounded…’

  Aunt Maude gasped.

  ‘Thankfully, it’s not serious, though others were badly hurt. But then something wonderful happened.’ My heart was nearly bursting with joy as I told her that Alessandro had proposed and I had accepted.

  ‘My dear Emilia!’ Aunt Maude reached for both my hands. ‘I’m so very happy for you.’

  ‘It makes me angry to think that if Father hadn’t intercepted Alessandro’s letters it might have happened before,’ I said. ‘This is a bitter-sweet day. I’m very sad I shan’t see the Queen again.’

  ‘Poor lady,’ sighed Aunt Maude. ‘And there will be difficult times ahead for you. Frederick will take the news of the cancellation of your wedding very badly, I fear.’ She twisted the end of her plait round and round her fingers. ‘You know, in the beginning he was passionately in love with Rose, or perhaps in love with the person he wanted her to be. It wasn’t until she didn’t conform to his ideal, when she voiced opinions that weren’t the same as his own, that he changed so towards her.’

  ‘And you fear his feelings towards me might change in a similar way?’

  ‘Frederick is a formidable enemy,’ she said, ‘and you must be extremely careful, Emilia.’

  Chapter 35

  August 1821

  Langdon Hall

  Father, Aunt Maude and I travelled together to Langdon Hall, with our ladies’ maids, Father’s valet and the head footman following in the smaller carriage. The rain drummed down on the roof all the way, making our nerves taut as we jolted over muddy roads full of pot holes.

  ‘I suggested that Dolly drive down in the carriage with us,’ said Father, ‘but it appears he has more important matters to attend to in town today. You’d have thought an appointment with his tailor or his wine merchant would be less pressing than the company of his fiancée and learning to run the estate that will one day be his.’ He smiled in grim satisfaction. ‘I gave him a piece of my mind… and serve him right if he nearly drowns when he rides down on horseback tomorrow.’

  I shifted my feet, which were pressed uncomfortably against the box containing my wedding gown, with the canvas-wrapped painting Father had bought at the auction tucked in behind. Daisy hadn’t allowed Dobson to put the dress box with the other luggage on the roof, not even under a tarpaulin, in case the rain penetrated it and spoiled the silk. Perhaps I’d give the gown to her later. I certainly wouldn’t wear it when I married Alessandro. I smiled to myself, imagining how wonderful that day would be, filled with happiness and laughter. I wouldn’t care if I were dressed in rags so long as Alessandro loved me.

  ‘What are you smiling about, Emilia?’ asked Father. ‘Dreaming of your wedding day?’

  I laughed. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I was.’

  At last we arrived at Langdon Hall. It was raining still and as the carriage clattered over the drawbridge the water in the moat appeared black, reflecting the bruised sky. Dobson brought the carriage to a stop close to the front door and servants ran out with sheltering umbrellas before we dashed into the hall.

  Soon we were drinking tea in the library, while the servants lit candles to dispel the gathering gloom.

  Father unwrapped the new painting and propped it against the wall beneath his other Dutch interiors. ‘Come and tell me what you think of this, Emilia,’ he said. ‘As soon as I saw it I thought how appropriate it was.’

  The painting depicted a couple, holding hands and standing on a tiled floor in a darkly panelled room. Sunlight poured in through a large window with diamond-shaped leaded lights, illuminating the damask of the young woman’s claret gown and the white linen of the man’s shirt.

  ‘It always strikes me how calm and peaceful these Dutch interiors are,’ I said. ‘There’s a beautiful underwater quality to the light, similar to when sun falls onto a stream and you catch a flash of the secret world existing beneath.’

  ‘It’s called The Proposal,’ said Father. ‘It looks as if the portrait has captured the young woman just as she’s about to speak.’

  ‘It makes me curious,’ I said, ‘about whether she said yes.’

  ‘Of course she did,’ said Father. ‘They would never have been painted together if she hadn’t.’

  ‘Well, I hope they had a happy marriage.’ Sipping my tea, I wondered how soon I was going to have an opportunity to search his study for the staircase to the secret gallery.

  The following morning, after breakfast, Father retired to his study. ‘I have a considerable amount of estate business to attend to,’ he said, ‘and on no account wish to be disturbed.’

  My heart sank since that meant he wouldn’t be going out.

  After he’d left the room, Aunt Maude said, ‘Frederick will be expecting us to be making the final arrangements for the wedding.’

  ‘That would be a waste of our time,’ I said. My stomach knotted again at the prospect of breaking off the engagement. ‘Instead, perhaps we should write to the guests to tell them it’s cancelled? We can post the letters after I’ve broken the news.’

  Aunt Maude bit her lip. ‘Supposing Frederick were to find them?’

  ‘Hide them in your work basket,’ I said.

  We sat in the library and worked steadily on the letters for the next hour until Samuel came to inform us that Mr Cole, the tenant of Little Langdon Farm, had called to speak to Father.

  ‘Sir Frederick is in his study,’ I said.

  ‘I did knock,’ said Samuel, ‘but there was no response. I’ve looked everywhere for him since Mr Cole is so anxious to speak to him. I wondered if Sir Frederick might have gone out?’

  I frowned. ‘Not so far as I am aware. I shall speak to Mr Cole.’

  He stood in the hall, as solid as an oak tree, with his hat grasped in his meaty hands. He wore a rough tweed coat and old-fashioned breeches on his sturdy legs. ‘Ah, Miss Langdon! A pleasure to see you again but it’s Sir Frederick I need to speak to on a matter of some importance.’

  ‘Come into the little parlour, Mr Cole,’ I said. ‘Father is in his study and has asked the servants not to disturb him. I’ll see if he’ll come and speak to you for a moment.’

  ‘That’s kind of you, Miss Langdon.’

  He perched his bulky frame incongruously on a delicately carved chair and I hurried across the hall to tap on the study door. There was no reply so I turned the handle. The door was locked and I returned to explain to Mr Cole that my father must have gone out after all.

  Some two hours later Aunt Maude and I had finished the letters and stowed them away in her work basket ready for posting. I was sitting on the window seat watching the rain pock-mark the moat when Father appeared in the library with his newspaper rolled up under his arm.

  ‘There you are!’ I said. ‘It’s nearly time for dinner and I thought you’d gone out.’

  ‘Not in this perpetual rain,’ he said. ‘Besides, I told you I was working.’

  ‘So you did,’ I said, ‘but Mr Cole came to speak to you and I tapped on the door to no response.’

  Father
shrugged. ‘Been there all morning. I didn’t hear you. Probably concentrating too hard. What did Cole want?’

  I looked at my father thoughtfully. ‘He asked you to call on him at Little Langdon Farm. The rain is damaging the harvest and Lower Meadow is half flooded.’

  ‘I’m not sure what he expects me to do about it,’ grumbled Father.

  ‘He asked if you’d visit him this afternoon. He’s very anxious.’

  Father sighed. ‘I’ll go after we’ve had our dinner. I need to talk to him about a rent increase anyway.’ He opened up his newspaper and settled down to read about the shameful story of the people’s rebellion during the funeral procession of the late Queen.

  I made an excuse to slip away and hurried upstairs to my bedroom. Mother’s diary was wrapped in a scarf and concealed behind the lining of my old travelling bag. I hastily reread the passage where she explained how she’d found the staircase to the gallery.

  Searching the folios on Frederick’s bookcase I found the secret staircase almost by mistake. It smelled dank and mouldy and was too dark to explore further without a light. Fortuitously, there was a candlestick on the bookshelves. Perhaps Frederick keeps it there for exactly this purpose? Harriet was resting so I lit the candle and descended the stairwell.

  I closed my eyes and pictured Father’s study in as much detail as I could remember. The folios were the clue. If Mother had been examining the folios when she found the access to the staircase, surely it must be behind the bookshelves? Father hadn’t been in the study when I knocked on his door but I guessed he might have been out of earshot in his hidden gallery.

  I hid the diary again and went downstairs as Robert announced dinner was ready.

  I was in an agony of impatience as we ate and could hardly force down a morsel while Father had a second helping of beef pudding and seemed inclined to linger over his claret and cheese.

  Aunt Maude watched me as I crumbled a piece of bread and tried to make light conversation about the continuing bad weather.

  At last Father pushed back his chair. ‘I suppose it’s no use delaying any longer,’ he said, glancing at the rain hammering against the window panes.

  ‘Will you take the carriage?’ asked Aunt Maude.

  Father shook his head. ‘Cole wants us to look at the Lower Meadow so I’ll ride Shadow. Don’t forget Dolly will probably arrive before I return.’

  Aunt Maude and I retired to the library and a short while later I heard hooves clattering across the courtyard.

  ‘This is my opportunity to look for the hidden chapel,’ I said, ‘before Father returns and Dolly arrives. Of course, even if I find it, the stolen paintings may no longer be there. Then I can’t prove Father is the Picture Frame Thief. You go and have your rest, Aunt Maude. Later, I’ll come and tell you what I’ve found.’

  I accompanied her to the bottom of the staircase and waited until she’d turned onto the first-floor landing. Glancing around the hall to make sure no servants were watching, I slipped inside Father’s study.

  I stood in the centre of the room, hearing only my own heartbeat. There was a faint smell of tobacco smoke. The leather desktop was clear except for a brass ink pot and a blotter. Five paintings hung on the walls and, as far as I could see, there was no concealed jib door. The bookcase, built in three sections across one entire wall, was stacked with buff leather-bound folios, books and a few artefacts: a Chinese vase, a small bronze figure of a boy throwing a discus, a candlestick and a stone urn full of marble chips.

  I went to look more closely at the first bookcase, pulling at it to see if it would move forward, but it was firmly fixed to the wall. I tried the same with the middle section and then the final one. A flash of excitement left my pulse racing when it moved a fraction. Perhaps this was it? I pushed aside some of the folios on the shelves, not quite sure what I was looking for, and it wasn’t until I reached the lowest shelf that I saw the brass hinges in its back corner.

  I searched the shelves above more carefully until I found another set of hinges in the centre and the last set higher up. My fingers scrabbled behind the folios at the opposite end of the shelves and in only a moment I had located two small bolts. I lifted them up and hinged the bookcase out towards me. I drew in my breath as a door was revealed in the wall behind. Grasping the ring handle, I paused for a second and looked at my fingers, imagining my mother’s hand in the same place all those years ago when she, too, had found this door.

  It wouldn’t open. There was a small keyhole under the handle but no key. Frustration boiled up in me and I could have screamed. I took a deep breath. Think! What was it Mother had written?

  Fortuitously, there was a candlestick on the bookshelves. Or perhaps Frederick keeps it there for exactly this purpose?

  I looked at the adjacent set of shelves and there was the candlestick. A tinderbox and a used spill lay beside it. Where would Father keep the key? Somewhere nearby… I rummaged through the marble chips in the stone urn without success and then my gaze fell on the Chinese vase. I tipped it towards me and heard a slight chink of metal against the porcelain. Peering inside, my heart leaped when I saw a key. My trembling fingers pushed it into the door lock and it turned with a satisfying click. I opened the door and shivered when I saw the rickety stairs disappearing down into blackness. The air smelled like that of a crypt.

  It took me several attempts with the tinder box to light the candle but finally I stepped, dry-mouthed, onto a winding staircase. The sound of my footsteps was muffled as I felt my way down and my elbows brushed against the dusty, cobwebbed walls to either side. I tried not to think how suffocating the blackness would be if I dropped the candle. At the foot of the steps was a rusty gate with a key in the lock. I turned this and pushed the gate inwards.

  Then I stepped through.

  Chapter 36

  The air was very still. It almost felt as if I was suspended in time in the cool, mould-scented gloom. Light filtered in through four narrow clerestory windows set high up along one wall, dimly illuminating a sizeable underground chamber. I had found the hidden chapel!

  My eyes began to make out shapes in the shadows and I caught my breath at the sight of a group of people, all dressed in white, watching me. I froze until I realised they were marble statues, similar to those in the garden. I held my candle high to study the unseeing eyes in finely modelled faces and the sculpted drapes that barely concealed the perfect proportions of the figures. One of the women had a chipped nose but this did nothing to render her any less beautiful.

  Reluctantly, I turned away from the statues. Four pews in the centre of the space were arranged back to back in a rectangle, facing the walls, and there were a number of marble plinths displaying artefacts such as an urn, a marble bust or stone figurine. Bronze sconces in the sinuous shapes of water serpents, each supporting half a dozen candles, were fixed to the walls at regular intervals. I lit them from my candlestick and the decorative mirror behind magnified the flames into brilliance. Only once the chapel was ablaze with candlelight did I allow myself to look properly at the paintings.

  My eyes were immediately drawn to the glorious oil-painted panel of The Last Supper hanging above the altar. I lit the torchères to either side of it and the candlelight made the gold of the saints’ haloes gleam and the rich colours on the canvas glow as if they were alive. The painting was in the style of Botticelli. Each of the apostles had a face so full of character that the artist must have modelled them on persons known to him. The central figure of Christ stared directly back at the viewer and there was something about his benign expression that made it almost impossible for me to look away. Enchanted, I stood in front of the painting for I knew not how long, wondering why it seemed familiar.

  I had to find the proof I needed before Father returned. One by one I studied the other paintings, discovering that each was a treasure. I’d gleaned some knowledge of Italian art during my travels and was astonished by the number of religious works in the chapel that were beautiful enough to rival a
ny I’d seen in Florence, Siena, Arezzo, and the many ancient hilltop churches and monasteries in the area surrounding them.

  The religious paintings were hung at the altar end of the chapel but as I worked my way back towards the entrance I discovered secular subjects too, grouped together by type: portraits, landscapes, architecture, even some studies of exotic animals. Hurrying now, I glanced at the remaining pictures but wasn’t sufficiently knowledgeable to recognise the artists.

  Then I saw something that made me gasp. Two tiny portraits in oval gilt frames hung on the wall, spaced about a foot apart. Each showed the profile of a dark-haired girl, one facing to the left and one to the right. I knew without a shadow of doubt that the portrait that completed the trio was in my bedroom, safely sewn inside the rag doll I’d carried everywhere with me since I was a child. But how had these two miniatures come to be here? Father had told me he was still searching for them.