The Dressmakers of London

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Izzie hugged her sister close.

“I’m sorry. I should have written to tell you I was coming, but it was all very last-minute,” she said into Sylvia’s brushed-out curls. “I didn’t mean to make you cry!”

“No, it isn’t that,” said Sylvia, laughing and crying at the same time. “I’m just so glad to see you. How is it that you’re here?”

“Alexandra arranged it,” she said, shooting her friend a smile.

“I don’t like to trot out the aristocratic father too often, but I thought that in this case I would make an exception,” said Alexandra cheerfully. “Besides, Izzie had leave due back to her, but our commanding officer was being a beast about claiming she had forfeited it.”

“There haven’t been enough balloon units and—Oh, why am I explaining this all? The important thing is that I’m here,” Izzie said with a laugh.

“Did you see the show?” asked Sylvia, accepting a handkerchief from Alexandra.

“I did, and I thought it was exquisite.” Izzie leaned in. “Very clever of you to leave Mrs. Shelton’s design for last.”

“Organizer’s privilege,” said Sylvia as she dabbed at her tears.

“Oh, Sylvia, there are so many things I want and need to tell you about,” Izzie started.

“Like Jack?” her sister asked.

“Like Jack,” she said with a firm nod. “But this isn’t the place. Shall we go back to the shop?”

“Let’s.”

They didn’t leave straightaway, because Sylvia insisted on introducing Izzie to Lord and Lady Winman, who greeted Izzie like an old friend.

“I hear that I have you to thank for my wife’s dress,” said Lord Winman with a laugh.

Startled, Izzie glanced at the countess and realized that the light-green-and-white-striped summer dress with the square neck was, in fact, one of her designs.

“I suppose you do,” she said cheerfully.

Sylvia, Willie, Alexandra, Miss Reid, and Izzie finally trooped out of Winman House and onto a bus, with Willie offering to take Alexandra and Miss Reid for a cup of tea at a local tearoom so the sisters could chat.

Izzie kept sneaking glances at Sylvia when her sister wasn’t looking, taking her in. Sylvia seemed happier somehow, laughing more freely and listening to the conversation intently. However, it was the way that Sylvia and Willie always seemed to be searching for the other in the room that really warmed Izzie’s heart.

At the shop door, the rest of the group broke off and Sylvia pulled the key out of her handbag. She held it out. “I thought you might like to open it up yourself.”

“Thank you,” said Izzie. She took the key, the lock tumblers turning over with their familiar, satisfying click. When she pushed the door open, the bell jingled, and she breathed deep.

“It hasn’t changed a bit,” she said.

“Oh, you’ll change your tune soon enough. Shall we go back to the office?” asked Sylvia.

“Let’s,” said Izzie.

She followed her sister through the shop, down the corridor, and to the workroom. On the dress forms, she saw her designs, partially constructed and waiting for Miss Reid to return to work. On the cutting table were her most recent sketches, laid out in neat piles.

Sylvia opened the door to the office and let her inside. Immediately, Izzie’s eyes widened. “It looks like you never left all those years ago.”

Sylvia laughed. “I hope that means you think it’s an improvement.”

“It is,” she said firmly. “You’ve done a wonderful job.”

“I don’t know if I’d call it wonderful,” said Sylvia, dropping into what had been Mum’s chair.

Izzie stared at her sister.

“Oh!” Sylvia said, half rising. “Do you want me to move?”

She shook her head. “I was just thinking how right you look there in her spot.”

“I might look right in the office, but not on the workroom floor. That’s your domain,” said Sylvia, retaking the chair.

Izzie sat down opposite the desk. “Not so long as the WAAF have me.”

“It is as long as you want it,” said her sister firmly. “You are the heart and soul of this shop.”

“Thank you.” She looked down at her hands. “You asked about Jack. Things didn’t work out between us.”

“He didn’t try something, did he?” asked Sylvia with a fierceness that took Izzie by surprise.

“No! Nothing like that. He actually wanted to continue courting me. To see if we wanted to marry.”

“But—”

“He had it in his head that I would move to America. He thought I would just give up the shop and follow him,” she said.

“Well, that goes to show he doesn’t know the first thing about you. Stupid man,” Sylvia muttered.

“Maybe. In the end, neither of us was willing to budge.”

“I’m sorry, Izzie.”

She gave a little smile. “Thank you.”

“Do you love him?”

It was the question that had been her companion morning, noon, and night since she and Jack had parted. No matter how she looked at it, she came back to the same conclusion every time.

“I was infatuated with him,” she said slowly. “And I think I could have loved him, eventually.”

“But you love working and this shop more,” said Sylvia, finishing her thought.

In that moment Izzie knew her sister understood her more than Jack ever could. They were cut from the same cloth and, although their lives had gone down vastly different paths, that bond could not be broken so long as they both tried to keep it alive.

“Sylvia, I must apologize,” she started. “I’ve spent far too much time angry at you for choosing a different life and feeling left behind. However, I could have done more. I could have picked up the telephone. I could have written to you or marched up to your flat and insisted that you see me. Instead, I resented you, and I let that resentment fester.

“I’d like to try to be sisters again,” she finished.

“Oh, Izzie,” said Sylvia. “I thought I was doing the right thing for everyone when I distanced myself, but I can see now that it was cruel. I shouldn’t have kept things from you. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“No, you shouldn’t have,” said Izzie.

“That changes now.” Sylvia drew in a breath. “Starting with the news that I’ve decided to divorce Hugo.”

“You have?” Izzie asked. “Oh, Sylvia, that’s wonderful news!”

Her sister laughed. “Well, I’m glad my instincts were correct in thinking that you wouldn’t be unhappy to see the back of him.”

“I’m sorry that he hurt you, but I’m glad he won’t be able to any longer,” she said. “Is Willie going to help you?”

“No. He can’t.”

“Why not?” she asked.

Sylvia looked down at her beautifully manicured nails. “William told me that he—”

“Has been in love with you ever since he first laid eyes on you?”

“Izzie!”

She fell back in her chair laughing. “Believe me when I say that you are the only person that this is news to. The entire road knew, Sylvia. Mrs. Reynolds practically had your wedding date set, but then you met Hugo.”

“Goodness,” Sylvia breathed.

“And how do you feel about him?”

Sylvia smiled sweetly. “I like him. Very much. It’s too soon to say anything more.”

That was the Sylvia she remembered, practical to a T.

“That seems very sensible to me,” said Izzie.

They settled back in their chairs, a calm passing between them that hadn’t been there in many years. It felt good to be together, in the shop their mother had built. There was a legacy in those walls that was undeniable. One she was deeply proud of.

As though reading her thoughts, Sylvia broke the silence to ask, “Do you still want to buy my half of the shop?”

No.

The word almost slipped out, but instinct held Izzie back. It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate everything her sister had done, but what had happened between them had wounded her deeply. It would take time to heal the trust between them.

When Izzie didn’t answer, Sylvia continued, “Because I have an idea.”

“An idea?” she asked.

Sylvia placed her hands on the desk, as though preparing to deliver a speech she’d rehearsed many times.

“What if I stay on and help you run the business—not just during the war but for as long as we have the shop?” Sylvia asked. “I don’t have your talent for design and sewing, but I’m good at the business side of things. I’ve been thinking about how we could grow and change. What our mother built from nothing was incredible, but it could be so much more. With your eye… Izzie, I don’t see any reason that Mrs. Shelton’s Fashions couldn’t become a Hartnell or a Molyneux.”

Izzie let out a long breath. “That’s ambitious.”

“It is,” said Sylvia, her eyes sparkling. “It might even be mad, but I don’t think it’s completely mad.”

It was, Izzie realized, what she wanted but had never had the courage to dream of. A fashion house that was built on her mother’s legacy, her talent, and Sylvia’s acumen? That would be something to see, wouldn’t it?

“We’ll have to make it through the war first,” she said slowly.

“I agree,” said Sylvia. “Grand ambitions aren’t any good if we can’t make it out of rationing. I propose that we continue to operate as a dressmaker, but I could begin to pursue the type of client who is used to spending her money on Chanel and Schiaparelli and see if she will instead try bespoke British design while Paris is under occupation. Felicity’s—that is, Lady Winman’s—patronage will help.”

“And hopefully you can tempt some of the women who were at the fundraiser today,” said Izzie with a wry smile.

“Precisely,” said Sylvia. “I think that, with the press coverage that we received and the helpful fact that Lady Winman has the ear of the editor of Vogue , we could begin to build a truly bespoke side to the business slowly. No more of Maggie Shelton’s sketchbooks, but one-off designs that are exactly to the specifications of the client.”

She frowned. “How would that work? I’m stationed in Norfolk now, but I could be sent anywhere.”

“I would interview clients and take extensive notes that I could then send you via the post. You’d send back sketches until the client was satisfied. It might take a little longer, but these are women who are used to multiple fittings to perfect a dress. They will wait if it means having a one-of-a-kind Isabelle Shelton design.”

Izzie flushed at the thought of that. “An Isabelle Shelton…”

“It rolls off the tongue nicely, doesn’t it?” Sylvia asked.

It did indeed.

It felt almost too good to be true, but if Izzie knew one thing about her older sister, it was that Sylvia would will a promise into reality rather than let it fail.

Izzie leaned over the desk and stuck out her hand. “Shall we shake on it like in the films?”

Sylvia grasped her hand. “It’s a deal.”