Chapter 27
Mrs K. Lawson:
Blue tweed skirt
Blue silk blouse
Blue wool cardigan
40 denier tights
Suede pumps
Sapphire and diamond earrings
Florence sat in front of her computer and saw that the email she had been hoping for all day had landed.
But now she felt somewhat nervous about opening it.
Already, the time spent finding out more about how priceless items of couture had ended up at the back of her mother’s second wardrobe had revealed some fascinating secrets.
Her mother might not have wanted Florence to know these things at the time, but finding out now, when her mother had passed away at the fine old age of ninety-four had turned out to be strangely inspiring.
Her mother had had an affair…! At the age of fifty-eight.
Only a few years younger than Florence was now.
Florence had followed a strange chain of events to arrive at this discovery.
First of all, posing as a student working on a dissertation, she had contacted the Fondacion Dubois-Lafayette to ask who all the registered donors of Schiaparelli clothing were.
It turned out that there was only one donor of four items – a Mrs Robert Fielding, who had made the donations thirty years ago in the 1990s.
The curator was happy to give her a ‘care of’ address for Mrs Fielding with a lawyer’s office in London.
Well, as soon as Florence had obtained this information, she’d been ‘off to the races’, using her own legal investigation skills to contact this office, have a conversation with the legal team who had looked after the Fielding family affairs and establish that Mrs ‘Robert’, in fact, Margaret Fielding was no longer alive, nor were her sons, Terence and Leo, but Mrs Fielding had a daughter, Kate, who was in her eighties but might be happy to have a conversation with someone trying to establish the provenance of some vintage couture.
‘What did you say the designer was called?’ the young lawyer at the end of the line had asked her.
‘Schiaparelli, Elsa Schiaparelli.’
‘Sorry, you’ll need to spell that for me. I’ve never heard of her.’
‘No? She invented the bias cut, the wrap dress, shocking pink, culottes for women and visible zippers.’
‘Well… where would we be without visible zippers?’ he asked, sounding a little sceptical.
‘Or shocking pink?’ was her reply.
* * *
The lawyer contacted Mrs Kate Lawson, née Kate Fielding, and later that day, Mrs Lawson phoned Florence and they had a long and revealing conversation.
‘The first thing I need to tell you is that I’m not a student,’ Florence had confessed. ‘I’m finding out about these items for family reasons.’
‘Ooooh, how intriguing,’ Mrs Lawson had replied with a chuckle. ‘Well, why don’t you start at the beginning and let’s see what we can unravel together.’
So, Florence decided to tell Mrs Lawson the whole story.
She was in the process of gradually clearing out her mother’s house.
She’d come across clothes that she’d recognised as being rather special vintage clothes, and she’d decided to donate them to a large charity fashion show.
Well, no sooner had she done that, than she’d found letters from the Fondacion asking her mother to hand in items that belonged to them.
And one of the fashion show organisers had tracked her down and turned up at her door to ask if she knew that the clothes she’d dropped off were priceless fashion artefacts, possibly worth hundreds of thousands of pounds and was she sure she wanted to donate them.
‘Goodness me, I bet that was a surprise!’ Mrs Lawson sounded thoroughly entertained by it all. ‘So, what happened next?’
‘Oh, you will laugh, but the organiser’s daughter posted a photo of a dress online and now the entire fashion world is beating a path to this fashion show and a museum in New York is trying to make a pre-emptive bid.
So, as you can see, I rather desperately need to sort out if these things belong to me or not. ’
‘Indeed… And what about the museum in Paris, the Fondacion? Aren’t they interested in the dresses too?’
‘You know, I don’t think they’ve seen the post, for whatever reason, because when I phoned up to make Schiaparelli donation enquiries, no one mentioned it,’ Florence said, which to be honest, had been something of a relief. ‘But word is bound to get out.’
‘This is all very exciting,’ Mrs Lawson told her. ‘I’m thrilled to be part of it. And you know how it is; secrets are made to be told. So… I suspect we are going to unearth a secret between us here.’
‘Really?’
‘Oh yes,’ Mrs Lawson said, her voice much bubblier and more enthusiastic than expected for a woman of her age. ‘Now, tell me what your mother was called.’
‘Emily Perkins…’
‘Oh my goodness… Emily Perkins, and did she spend some time in Rome during the 1990s?’
‘Yes, she did. She got some special scholarship to go and be the artist in residence somewhere… I think it might have been the British School in Rome.’
‘Well, my older brother Terence had a wonderful job in Rome between 1994 and ’96, something to do with the Diplomatic Service, and we all suspected that he had a girlfriend.
In fact, my mother was very concerned. Terence was married, unhappily, and my mother was very worried about his reputation.
Imagined him being kicked out of the service.
But in Rome, certainly in those days, I think it was quite the thing for men and women to have strings of lovers.
I hope this isn’t shocking news,’ Mrs Lawson added quickly.
‘Well… I certainly didn’t know about this,’ Florence admitted. ‘My parents always seemed happy. They were married for a very long time and were good friends to one another.’
‘Yes, but something happens at the end of middle age, doesn’t it? We often want to seize that last chance at life.’
Florence paused, as she let everything that had been said so far sink in.
Her mother had still seemed young in her fifties and her father…
he’d enjoyed getting older, staying home, staying in, being absorbed in his work.
And Florence in her thirties at the time, climbing her career ladder hadn’t thought too much about what was going on in her parents’ lives.
She’d been happy for her mother to get the Rome opportunity: ‘A year of art in Rome!’
‘So, you think your brother and my mother spent time in Rome together? Possibly having a very glamorous time, going to parties and enjoying the artistic and diplomatic life… by the sounds of it.’
‘Something like that,’ Mrs Lawson confirmed. ‘Sounds lovely, wish I could be doing something like that instead of hobbling about my house on a stick.’
‘So… how do the clothes get involved?’
‘Oh yes, of course, so… our mother, who must have been my age back then, suddenly decided to pack up the family house and move to a flat. I think the heating bills, the upkeep, and rattling round a big place was completely getting to her. So, helpers were drafted in to sort through her things and… I think it’s called “downsizing” nowadays and it is fairly normal.
But back then, we all thought she’d completely lost her marbles – I mean, moving?
! At eighty-four! And all sorts of treasures from her glamorous life as the daughter of a diplomat in Paris, and then the wife of a diplomat, not to mention the mother of a diplomat, were gathered up and sorted.
Some things were sold and some very special things were to be sent to various museums – the V&A in London and then this special fashion museum in Paris. ’
‘The Fondacion Dubois-Lafayette?’
‘If you say so,’ was Mrs Lawson’s reply. ‘And guess who was responsible for taking the items over to Paris on his way back to Rome?’
‘Terence,’ Florence guessed. And felt a flutter of excitement as she understood what must have happened.
Terence must have looked through the items and decided that some were just too lovely to hang unworn in a museum, so instead, he’d packed up two dresses and a velvet jacket and taken them on to Rome to his beautiful and illicit girlfriend.
This did mean that the clothes were her mother’s.
They’d certainly not been taken from the Fondacion.
The fact that Mrs Fielding had meant for them to go to the Fondacion surely didn’t matter.
The legal part of Florence’s brain was informing her that possession was, famously, nine-tenths of the law.
Terence had had the dresses and he’d given them to Florence’s mother.
‘Do you think all these years later, we could find any kind of proof that this is what happened?’ Florence asked Mrs Lawson.
‘I haven’t looked through all her old letters, by any means… maybe there would be something there. Hmmmmm…’ Mrs Lawson was obviously thinking. ‘When exactly was your mother in Rome?’
‘September 1993 to July 1994, the academic year. I remember because I was doing bar exams in 1994 and we joked about being students again.’
‘My mother kept a diary all her life. And she also organised her photos very meticulously in dated boxes. So, I will see what I can unearth for you. And meanwhile, I don’t think you should worry too much.
It sounds to me as if you have inherited some beautiful clothes and you should be allowed to do with them as you choose. ’
‘It’s been fascinating talking to you,’ Florence told her. ‘Thank you so much.’
Mrs Lawson promised to be in touch soon and both women agreed that it would be lovely to meet in person, so the next time Florence was anywhere near Sussex, she would arrange to visit.
* * *
And now only a few hours after the phone call, the email from ‘K. Lawson’ had landed with the intriguing title:
Surprising evidence!
Realising that her fingers were shaking slightly, Florence hit the open button.