Chapter 9 — What He Let Them Call Her
The first envelope arrived at Devika’s dyehouse addressed to THIEF.
It contained three photocopied photographs of Saskia’s dress, each marked with red circles around the gold resist. No letter. No threat that required police. Only the confidence that somebody was entitled to reach Ottilie above a workshop they had found online.
Devika put the envelope into a clear bag with metal tongs.
“The tongs are excessive,” Ottilie said.
“They were beside the indigo vat.”
“You use them for skeins.”
“Today they have diversified.”
Ottilie photographed the envelope through the plastic and wrote the time it arrived.
The police non-emergency line gave her a reference number and advised keeping future post unopened if it contained powder, liquid or a direct threat.
Devika changed the delivery name on the outer door to SHAH TEXTILES and arranged a locked box downstairs.
The expense went into Ottilie’s legal-loss schedule, not the dyehouse account.
At ten, a former private client called about a scarf Ottilie had painted three years earlier. She no longer wanted to wear it until the authorship dispute ended.
“I want to know whether it is yours or hers,” the client said.
“The design and painting are mine. The Harcourt label records the company that sold it.”
“Can you prove that now?”
Ottilie could prove the invoice, the sample card and photographs of herself making it. The client wanted a public verdict compressed into a yes. She offered copies of the existing record and no reassurance beyond it. The woman chose to store the scarf.
By lunch, two teaching invitations had been paused and a panel removed Ottilie’s biography from its website pending “clarity”. A textile supplier placed her personal account on prepayment because online messages questioned whether materials bought by her belonged to Harcourt it had not stopped everybody else from multiplying the accusation.
Her name appeared beside fraud, plagiarist and nepo wife often enough that the search suggestions completed the words before she finished typing.
She stopped searching.
Mina Dawes had published the most careful account.
It included the earlier internal registration, Ottilie’s claim of prior physical originals and the court’s refusal to decide authorship at an urgent hearing.
The headline still read HARCOURT FASHION WEEK DISPUTE: CEO SUSPENDS WIFE OVER COPYING CLAIM.
Accuracy arranged around the accusation didn’t displace it.
Felicity called at half past nine. “Do you want to issue a statement?”
“Yes.”
“Purpose?”
“Confirm the claim and stop people treating silence as an admission.”
“Then two sentences. No thread, no video, no photographs of childhood sketchbooks. We file evidence in court before we feed it to strangers.”
Ottilie wrote eleven drafts and sent Felicity the shortest.
I created the work. I didn’t assign it. Evidence will be filed in court.
Felicity removed a comma, approved it and arranged posting through a newly secured professional account. Ottilie switched off replies.
The first gallery cancellation came five minutes later.
Rosebank Contemporary had planned to show four of her framed silk studies in June. The director spoke gently and used the phrase pause pending clarity. Two collectors had asked whether Harcourt the archive entry described the house as creative lead.
“We are temporarily removing the commendation from the public database,” the committee secretary said. “The underlying award remains pending review.”
“What are you reviewing?”
“Whether the work was original.”
“The allegation is that I copied Saskia this week. The awarded textile was produced three years before she joined the company.”
“The public will not make that distinction while the broader dispute is unresolved.”
“Then the committee should.”
The secretary sounded genuinely sorry. “Our trustees believe suspension protects the award’s integrity.”
Ottilie wrote down the decision. “Send the complete archive wording before you remove it. I want a record of every maker currently listed.”
“We can reinstate the page if you are cleared.”
“That doesn’t answer who is listed now.”
The secretary promised the record. It arrived with three names missing: Devika, Jean and the machinist who developed the joining seam. Ottilie forwarded it to each of them without asking for a public response.
The committee had managed to suspend her name and preserve the incomplete credit beneath it.
When the call ended, Devika appeared in the doorway with two mugs of tea.
“You look pleased,” she said.
“I charged an educational institution for its principles.”
“Good. Put the money towards a better chair.”
The kitchen chair had pressed a bar across Ottilie’s back since dawn. She stood and took the tea.
Downstairs, an assistant named Rafi was rinsing a length dyed for an independent costume maker. His name had appeared overnight in a forum post listing “Ottilie Vane’s copying network”. He lived with his parents and had removed the workshop from his social accounts before coming in.
“You can take paid leave,” Devika told him.
Rafi shook his head. “Then they think I’ve gone.”
“They are strangers.”
“My aunt saw it.”
Ottilie watched water run from the cloth into the rinse trough, purple-grey at first and then clear. “Felicity can send a correction demand where the post identifies you,” she said. “You decide whether she does. Not me.”
Rafi rubbed dye from his wrist. “Will it make them stop?”
“Possibly. It may also make the post travel farther.”
“Then wait.”
Ottilie nodded. She didn’t promise the damage would be washed out because the truth existed somewhere beneath it.
At noon, the bank relationship manager called about the pre-approved loan for Ottilie’s proposed studio.
The facility had passed credit review two weeks earlier but had not drawn down.
A reputational-risk clause allowed the bank to suspend before completion if professional income became materially uncertain.
“My collateral has not changed,” Ottilie said.
“Your projected commission income has.”
“Because companies are reacting to a false statement made by the chief executive of my largest client.”
“I understand the context.”
“Then say what the bank is doing.”
“We are freezing the offer pending resolution of the proceedings.”
Ottilie wrote the words on a sheet of paper. Loan frozen. Not refused, not lost, not available.
“Please send the decision and the clause in writing.”
After the call, she opened the cash forecast she had prepared for the studio. Without the loan, the premises, ventilation and first three months of wages disappeared. Her personal savings could fund legal costs or a small body of work, not both at the scale she had planned.
Devika read the figure over her shoulder. “Do not ask me to tell you it will be fine.”
“I was going to ask whether your upstairs sink can take a five-litre dye pot.”
“It can take a saucepan. Use my floor when production allows, and pay the same bench rate as everyone.”
“Thank you.”
“That was a price, not comfort.”
“I heard both.”
By afternoon, two silk suppliers changed Ottilie’s account terms to payment in advance. One had worked with her for nine years. The sales manager apologised and explained that Harcourt no assignment had been signed; proceedings sought protection and correction; she would make no further comment while evidence was before the court.
The statement went out under Ottilie Vane, not Mrs Christopher Harcourt. Within minutes, reporters asked whether using Vane announced a divorce. Felicity ignored them. A name didn’t require a second explanation in order to belong to its owner.