The Wardrobe Mistress_A heart-wrenching wartime love story

by Natalie Meg Evans

  He was at his desk and looked as though he’d been punched. Seeing her, he rose and held a letter towards her. ‘The knives are out.’

  The letter came from the chairlady of The Elizabeth Farren Society informing Commander Redenhall that, after detailed consideration, they had decided not to invest in his latest production. The writer cited ‘Moral objections, and Management’s failure to take an appropriate stance on the matter of divorce.’ She concluded that, ‘The play’s subject matter seems bound to invite a controversy that we, as a society, would not wish to partake in.’

  ‘This is bad,’ Vanessa said, passing the letter back.

  ‘I’d like to know how they’re so well-briefed on my private life. Have you let anything slip, Vanessa?’

  Vanessa asked him kindly not to insult her, then told him what she’d overheard at Mr Stephen’s.

  He sat back, issuing a heavy breath. Of relief or disgust, she couldn’t tell. ‘You’re saying that all the stuff that slews around about me emanates from a hairdresser’s salon?’

  ‘It’s possible. The Chairlady of the Elizabeth Farren Society might be a client.’

  Alistair screwed up the letter and lobbed it towards the paper bin. ‘They aren’t the chief backers. We still have funding. Any squeak from Hugo?’

  Vanessa reported her fruitless search. As a sop, she described her visit to Stage-Stock, only to be discouraged when Alistair shook his head.

  ‘Too late. Aubrey Hinshaw is sold on Hugo’s creations. It’s changed the way he’s directing the play. We can’t jettison Brennan’s genius now. How much would it cost to hire, as a matter of interest?’

  He winced when Vanessa told him. ‘Shame The Farren’s costumes were destroyed. We could have made a fortune hiring them out. This poor theatre has had a run of terrible luck.’ He came round his desk, clasping Vanessa lightly on the shoulder. ‘Don’t flinch. I’m not going to kiss you. I shouldn’t want to put Patrick Carnford out of a job.’

  ‘He’s a very good kisser,’ Vanessa agreed. This time, she wasn’t going to apologise for something that hadn’t been her fault.

  Alistair shrugged. ‘Close the door on your way out, Mrs Kingcourt.’

  Alistair listened to her retreating footsteps. He knew he was being inconsistent with Vanessa. Kissing her, dancing close, then sending her off with a flea in her ear. The trouble was he wanted her very badly, but he was still sufficiently in control to know the dangers for both of them. One incautious embrace and she’d be head-first in the barrel of his divorce. Tarnished by his ‘objectionable morals’. He’d never forgive himself.

  In the days following, more ‘angels’ dropped out, leaving only one large investor, Mr Blandford, a London stockbroker with an independently wealthy wife. On the evening of October 14th, Blandford’s secretary telephoned to express her employer’s doubts as to whether the play should go ahead. Robin Amery, The Farren’s Public Relations Officer, took the call and asked the secretary to hold while he fetched Alistair.

  Alistair invited Mr and Mrs Blandford to visit. ‘Let them meet the cast. They’ll see how the sets are shaping up, and we may put on a costume display for them.’

  Robin Amery, listening, mouthed, ‘We have no costumes.’

  Alistair ended the call, saying, ‘Sunday the twentieth? Perfect. We look forward to seeing them then.’

  Used to making decisions under fire, Alistair felt no panic. He went to find Vanessa. ‘Costume display’ required her input.

  She wasn’t in, and her door was locked.

  She wasn’t in because she was finally cornering Hugo.

  He was in his atelier, the lights off, a hunted look on his face. In place of his usual Bohemian garb, he was squeezed into a ‘demob’ suit, brown pinstripe, too narrow across the shoulders. He’d combed his hair down over his eyes and looked as though he hadn’t shaved for days.

  ‘Why are you chasing me, Nessie?’

  ‘You need to ask?’ An empty kitbag lay on the table. Otherwise, the studio was bare. ‘Hugo, I feel like a lobster dropped in a pan of boiling water. I can’t costume Lady Windermere on my own.’

  ‘You’re not on your own. Alistair’s behind you.’

  ‘Not sure. He caught me kissing Patrick Carnford.’

  ‘For pity’s sake, what’s wrong with you? Can’t you see when a man cares, and when he doesn’t?’

  Uncertain how to interpret that, Vanessa put the kettle on. Hugo looked undernourished. As she passed him, she smelled sweat. ‘You need to go home and have a bath.’

  He waited till she returned with tea before saying, ‘I can’t. The police are watching my place.’

  ‘Are you a friend of Mrs King?’

  ‘Fuck,’ he said. ‘You know?’

  ‘Hugo, I haven’t a clue. Will you tell me?’

  ‘Mrs King . . . Queen. I’m a queen, darling. I suppose they didn’t have them in the RAF.’

  ‘You’re forgetting I went to art college before I joined up. You could have confided in me.’

  ‘No, I couldn’t. My life is illegal. Breathing is illegal, the way I do it.’ Hugo pushed his hair back, revealing eyes blasted with exhaustion. ‘Tell Alistair I want him to succeed. And I’m sorry it had to end like this.’

  ‘You’re not planning anything stupid?’

  ‘Dear idiot, nobody “plans” anything stupid. That’s the whole point of stupid. I’m bolting to Paris. What irony, to follow in the footsteps of Oscar Wilde. He died there, three years on. I don’t intend to.’ Hugo looked past her, to the window where passers-by appeared as fast-moving stripes. ‘I should never have come back to The Farren. It has an atmosphere . . . I thought it was just Cottrill who believed in that Back Row Flo rubbish. He’s mad. Did you know, the first time he saw you, he thought you were Flo, manifesting on stage?’

  ‘Nothing of the sort! Cottrill saw me as an intrusive female.’

  ‘Poor fellow spent the war down the coal mines. Confined spaces turned his brain. The Farren is doing the same to me. When I was younger, working sixty hours without sleep wouldn’t have bothered me. I’d have taken Benzedrine and sailed through. But nobody sells Benzo any more. So I’m drinking brandy, glass after glass, but it’s unlatched something in my head. My terrors have come back.’

  ‘What terrors, Hugo?’

  ‘Stuff I went through in the war. I can’t explain. Then a week ago, I broke a golden rule and kissed a friend in an alley – only a peck, honest, m’Lud – but a policeman was walking past. The bastard blew his whistle, and I ran home. The copper saw me go in, and now I can’t go back there. I’ve kept moving, a night here, a night there, but I can’t hide for ever.’

  ‘It’s not illegal to kiss a friend on the cheek.’

  ‘In Soho, in an alley next to a club that gets raided twice a year? ’Course it is. I might serve two years, and how d’you imagine the prison warders and the other lags will treat an Irish homosexual who designs theatre costumes? Forget I risked my life for this country.’ He put a hand on her shoulder, an echo of Alistair. ‘The show will go on. The carpenters will build the sets and you, my diminutive darling, will get the costumes made.’

  ‘How? I am way out of my depth.’

  ‘The man I rent this place from is Mr Rag-Trade. Actually, he’s called Doll. No, really, he is. Toddy Doll, so Dickensian. You’ll find him on Duchess Street.’

  ‘Miss Bovary’s sure to bring in that Mrs Yorke.’

  ‘Well, maybe.’ Hugo pulled out a wallet and extracted a cheque, which he gave to Vanessa. It was for a hundred and twenty pounds. ‘The upfront payment for my work. I’m running out on the job and I’m not bastard enough to take the money.’

  The cheque was issued by ‘Rolf Associates’ and the signatories were ‘Mr & Mrs T Rolf.’ ‘Your contract is with them,’ Vanessa asked, ‘not with the theatre?’

  ‘They were determined to employ me over Alistair’s head. They knew I’d bugger up and they want the play to fail. I’m difficult, controversial and I misjudge the mood of
audiences and critics.’

  ‘Not this time.’

  ‘Bless you. But nobody has offered me work except Terence and Sylvia Rolf. Though I never got round to signing their contract, so I suppose I don’t even work for them.’

  ‘If you haven’t cashed the cheque or signed the contract, the designs are still yours.’

  He tipped his head, agreeing.

  Taking out her chequebook, she wrote a draft for sixty pounds. ‘Made out to you.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘It’s my savings. I inherited the money from my husband, and I’ve never felt it was morally mine. Something I can’t explain.’ She tore a sheet from a notepad and handed him her pen, then dictated a short note. Hugo’s hand shook.

  ‘Sign and date it.’

  ‘Slow down, bossy-boots. What is the date, by the way?’

  As he signed his name, there came a hammering at the door followed by a shout of, ‘Open up or we’ll force it!’

  Hugo turned ashen.

  Vanessa asked, ‘Is there a back way out?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Grab your kitbag. I’ll stall them. See you . . . one day. Send me a postcard of the Eiffel Tower.’

  It wasn’t hard to act the part of a frightened half-wit with two plain clothes men and four uniformed officers cannoning past her. As they pushed past, one of them elbowed Vanessa in the mouth. She shouted, ‘He fought for this country! Show some respect!’

  She heard crockery smashing in the kitchen. Grabbing the paper Hugo had signed and the keys he’d left on the table, holding a handkerchief to her lower lip, she left them to it and headed to Mr Doll of Duchess Street.

  When she returned to The Farren, it was dark and she was staggering under the weight of a heavy package. Approaching the building from Russell Street, she was rewarded by a light in Alistair’s office window. Let him be in a mellow mood. She’d made decisions that he might be inclined to swat down.

  She found him adjusting his clock. Without turning, he asked if she’d been ‘Hugo hunting’.

  ‘I have news. Um . . . quite bad.’

  ‘Only “quite”? Then it’ll be better than mine.’ He set the hands of the clock to nine-twenty and closed the glass. ‘You first.’

  She told him about the police raid, Hugo’s flight.

  Slumping in an armchair, he waved her to the other and said nothing for so long that she was stirred to defiance.

  ‘If you want my opinion, the law is criminal.’

  ‘If you want my opinion, I agree, but that isn’t going to bring our designer back.’ He rolled his head lazily to look at her. ‘Any brilliant ideas, Kingcourt?’

  She opened up her parcel and showed him white silk crepe, a slab two doorsteps thick. ‘Forty-two yards, and they’re getting more in next week.’

  ‘“They”?’

  ‘A company called Doll & Saunders, only “Saunders” is a phantom partner, because customers like to think there’s more than one person in charge. So Mr Doll said.’ Vanessa had found her way to Duchess Street, which lay off Portland Place. Lights on in all the windows, sewing machines whirring, the proprietor in his office. Hearing her explanation that Hugo had been ‘called home to Ireland’ – a justifiable lie, she believed – Mr Doll had reacted furiously.

  ‘What about my rent?’

  When she explained her role at The Farren, adding that she’d like to take over Hugo’s lease, Mr Doll had simmered down.

  ‘It’s a nice little premises. Just the thing for you.’

  He was a manufacturer and wholesaler of ladies’ fashions, therefore no use to her as a costume-maker. She pressed him for the name of someone who could make costumes and he came up with one. ‘She might do – if you’re desperate.’

  ‘I am.’ Mr Doll had been sent by heaven. He had access to French silk. The best.

  All this, she told Alistair.

  He looked at her cut lip and she explained about the policeman’s elbow. ‘How much?’ He meant the silk.

  This required a deep breath. ‘Eighty shillings a yard.’

  ‘Eighty? So this lot will have cost –’ he worked it out. ‘How did you pay?’

  ‘I haven’t, it’s on credit. Look – it’s real French silk, in dreadfully short supply. French mills are only now exporting again, and customs slaps on a huge tariff, so four pounds a yard is . . . well, what it is. I will dye it.’

  Alistair looked sceptical.

  ‘In small batches, to match Hugo’s colour schemes. Mr Doll has a man who’ll advise me. And the woman he recommended comes with a team of seamstresses.’ Vanessa knew she was over-selling. She wouldn’t have taken the silk, but Mr Doll had said, ‘The next lot coming in will be double the price. Take this batch and you can have whatever you need afterwards at the same price. If it has to be silk, it has to be French – unless you want to make your costumes from old parachutes.’

  Alistair was still frowning. ‘Hugo said he’d need one hundred and twenty yards for the Second Act dresses, so at my reckoning, that’s eight hundred pounds.’

  She’d worked that out herself, on the bus-ride here. ‘It’s probably more than the budget. And that number doesn’t include hiring in corsetry and accessories.’

  Alistair stretched his arm to Macduff, who had slunk out from under the desk. ‘Let’s not pretend that putting on a show is cheap. All right. Keep a tight eye on costs.’ He told her about the latest investors abandoning ship – some associates of Terence Rolf’s - and about the Blandfords who must be wooed and won all over again. ‘If they pull the plug, we go dark. I always thought myself quite well off, but I can’t bankroll a show on my own. The money my Uncle Bo left in the current account has been pretty much eaten; there wasn’t all that much. The bulk of his fortune is tidied away in a trust to which I do not have the key. Have you had dinner?’

  She hadn’t even had lunch.

  ‘There’s a little place down the street. They do an after-theatre menu.’

  ‘I’m not properly dressed.’ She’d run on wet pavements and her stockings were spattered. ‘My lip must look stupid, too.’

  ‘It looks bee stung, but if it makes you happier, we’ll take a shadowy corner table.’

  ‘Thank you. I’d like to.’

  At the stage door, Alistair spent a moment speaking with Kidd, the night janitor who was as short and wiry as Doyle was beefy and broad. Whenever he went out, Alistair handed Macduff into the care of a trusted member of staff with the words, ‘Don’t let him out of your sight.’

  Kidd touched his cap. ‘I’ll stick to him like glue, sir.’

  Their meal was simple and well-cooked, the wine excellent. They talked shop, and Vanessa soon grasped what lay ahead if new investors could not be found.

  ‘I’d have to declare the theatre company bankrupt and I’d be at risk of losing the building,’ Alistair told her.

  ‘The Rolfs and Miss Bovary would celebrate. I’m sure, now, that it’s their strategy to sink you. Don’t you?’

  ‘I’m heading that way. At any rate, they’d most certainly try to buy The Farren, without its debts, from the Receiver. And it would be such a waste. We have a good company, a brilliant director and four leading stars –’ he was opposite her, close enough that she saw his pupils dilate – ‘and I’m generous enough to include Carnford in that.’

  Two glasses of wine and a hypnotic candle made Vanessa bold. ‘Thousands of girls would give a year’s salary for a kiss from Patrick Carnford.’

  ‘Thousands probably already have.’

  She laughed. ‘Kissing is free. It’s what it leads to that can be costly.’

  Alistair touched her sore lip. ‘You know the best remedy for bee stings, don’t you?’

  ‘Vinegar. Or is it bicarbonate of soda? I can never remember.’

  He leaned forward and brushed her mouth with his. A moment’s contact, then he sat back. ‘We met at the right time.’

  ‘The right time?’

  ‘For friendship. We’re a good tea
m.’

  ‘Oh.’ That was it. Friendship and the indeterminate postponement of the love she was beginning to feel she couldn’t survive without.

  He called for the bill. ‘I have a request. Can you have a dress made by Sunday?’

  She was jarred into saying, ‘Definitely. Whose dress?’

  ‘Clemency Abbott’s. I’ll ask her to come to you for a fitting tomorrow, after rehearsal.’

  Chapter 19

  The war had driven into the national character a sense that anything was possible. When bridges had been built in days and runways repaired within hours, ‘a dress by Sunday’ was a cinch.

  During a break in the Tuesday rehearsal, Alistair asked Miss Abbott to surrender an hour of her time and go to the wardrobe room. She pouted. ‘I was taking my cat to be groomed this afternoon.’

  ‘Shall I write a note of apology to the cat?’

  ‘Mm. Or come in person and say sorry to Mr Whiskers. Oh – and if that pert little Wardrobe Mistress cheeks me, the fur will fly.’

  ‘Understood.’ They were at the green room door. Declining an invitation to join the actors for tea, Alistair signalled to Rosa Konstantiva that he’d like a private word. He asked her if she’d attend the fitting.

  ‘Vanessa could do with a helping hand. I know it’s a lot to ask.’

  ‘You want me to hold the other end of the tape measure?’ Rosa laughed. ‘Why not. It’ll bring back old times.’

  In the wardrobe room, Vanessa knew her basic skills were about to be tested and her hands wouldn’t stop shaking. She thrust the tape measure under her blouse to warm it.

  A knock. Vanessa cleared her throat and called, ‘Do please come in. Oh, Miss Konstantiva, how lovely to see you!’

  ‘Isn’t it equally lovely to see me?’ Miss Abbott walked into the room, stopping in astonishment when she saw Hugo’s sketches. ‘Are those the costumes?’

  ‘Yes. Beautiful, aren’t they?’