Chapter Seventeen
Clem had spent most of the morning either checking her e-mails or looking out the window. Mari was on her way over with her wedding dress and Clem couldn’t wait to see her again. She was fun, plus she was coming with a dress problem, which was filling Clem with excitement. The anticipation of a new project was always the best feeling. On top of that she had finished transforming the ballroom into her studio and had discovered loads more items of period clothing. In awe, she had dressed her mannequins in them and had sent photos to her old mentor, Giles Buckley, at the VA. She was hoping that he would be as excited as she was by them.
She checked her phone again but there was still no reply. Up here, she had the best signal and the best view. This medieval tower looked out over the rest of the castle and off across the countryside. Abdul was sitting on the stone windowsill looking out across the glen, the king of all he surveyed. At first she had tried to keep him out of the workshop, but every time she opened the door he was sitting there with a brief yowl and a regretful expression. She eventually let him in and he headed straight for the fireplace and settled down in front of the logs. And now he tended to just turn up wherever she was. She rubbed him under the chin and he rewarded her with a loud purr. Ruefully, Clem acknowledged that she was well and truly trained.
She thought that like Abdul, Miss Farano was also wearing her down. Since their spat in the housekeeper’s room and subsequent apologies the two women had fallen into a neutral space. It wasn’t entirely friendly, it wasn’t even particularly comfortable. Clem was viewing it as an arranged marriage where neither party was overwhelmed with the situation, but doing their best to cope with it.
Now she spotted a little car making its way along the main road about a mile away and then making a left turn. The car disappeared from sight behind a fold in the land but there was only one destination at the turning, Ruacoddy Castle.
Shoving her phone into her jeans pocket, she belted down the five flights of steps, leaping and jumping over Abdul as the two of them raced to the front door.
Mari didn’t get a chance to knock as Clem swung the door open and stood in front of the large portico waving madly. As she parked the car, Mari looked up at the castle doubtfully.
‘Where do you want me to park the car? It seems a bit scruffy to be dumped in front of this place.’
Clem laughed. ‘Leave it there, the butler will move it.’
‘You have a butler?!’
‘Don’t be daft. Of course I don’t. Leave it there and trust me, this place only looks impressive. Wait until you try to turn the cooker on or get warm.’
Mari looked at her new friend dubiously and Clem tried again.
‘Okay, so it is impressive. But it’s just a building. Now, let’s have a look at your dress. A wedding dress is always impressive. Come on.’
Leading Mari through to the ballroom, she kept trying to peep at the large dress bag draped across Mari’s arms. She could see that Mari was on edge and wasn’t sure why. Maybe her dress was truly awful? Maybe it was so wonderful and she was worried that Clem wouldn’t be able to adjust it for her. Whatever it took, Clem would fix it for her.
Ginny was coming down one of the staircases as Clem was making her way to the back of the castle and she smiled at Mari.
‘Hey Mari! Saw your Ollie playing at the Old Queen’s Arms the other night. Man he was on form. Where were you?’
Mari seemed uncomfortable. In the pub, she had struck Clem as the most self-assured person she knew, but here she seemed small and timid.
‘It was my shift in the pub.’
‘Fair enough; you missed a grand evening mind.’ She grinned at Clem, including her in the conversation. ‘Ollie is incredible on the fiddle. Any chance to hear him play make sure you go, the man has sold his soul to the devil. Now I’ve finished with the hoover, shall I make you two a coffee before I go?’
‘Would you?’ said Clem. ‘That’s really decent of you. Do you think you could also have a look at the fire in the ballroom? I think I’ve got it right but I’m not sure.’
Agreeing, Ginny headed off to the kitchen, and Clem grabbed Mari’s hand and pulled her towards the ballroom, desperate to show off her new studio.
Clem’s deliveries had arrived and she had had a wonderful time with the staff, helping to set up the workroom. They had removed the sheets from the chandeliers and polished the wooden floor. Clem had delighted in surprising the staff as she powered up the industrial floor buffer and got to work. Those cleaning jobs hadn’t been a total waste of time after all.
The next thing had been to set up the workstations. She had several long tables for laying out and cutting. Other tables were set up by the plug points for a variety of sewing machines.
Once she was happy that the room was ready, everyone brought the trunks and fabric rolls in from the storeroom. Some of the fabrics were so precious – red and white toile, jewelled chintz, iridescent satins and damasks – that she left them in the dark, cedar lined room. The more modern silks, cottons and tweeds however were fair game. Clem was looking forward to working with the fabrics but for now it was the clothes that caught everyone’s attention. Miss Farano hadn’t taken part, but Clem and the staff had great fun lifting out the old uniforms and fancy-dress outfits. Ginny looked perfect as a genie, and Duncan enjoyed pretending to be an emperor. Mr McKenzie looked at a heavily brocaded jacket and a pair of half-length red trousers and felt relieved he wasn’t working a hundred years ago.
Clem had ordered thirty mannequins and she now dressed them in various outfits, leaving the older, more precious clothes in the trunks. Finally, at the far end of the ballroom she had two velvet armchairs by the fire with a large, leather chesterfield footstool between them.
Every time she walked into her workroom her heart swelled with joy. Wherever she looked, the mountains outside the windows, the glittering chandeliers, the sumptuous outfits, the row of sewing machines, she smiled.
Now she opened the door with a flourish and Mari stepped in and looked around in wonder. It was huge, and full of light, the morning sun reflecting back off a long wall of mirrors. It was also freezing.
‘Bollocks!’ said Clem as she headed over to the fireplace. Mari followed and looked at a messy lump of logs and newspapers, mostly unburnt.
‘How long did you watch the fire before you left it?’
‘You’re supposed to watch it?’
‘Well, at least until it’s properly caught, and then if you leave it, you should bank it down and put a guard in front of it. Here, watch.’
And Mari pushed up her sleeves and knelt down in front of the hearth, with Clem watching carefully. Once the fire started to roar, Mari nodded with satisfaction, complimenting Clem on the strength of the draw, and looking at Clem’s blank face she grinned.
‘The amount of suck the chimney has. With a bad draw this room would be full of smoke, and I don’t reckon you want that on all those pretty clothes. Or the outfit you are currently wearing. Did you make it?’
Clem looked down in delight at her robe, another treasure that she had found in the trunk. It was an eighteenth-century banyan, a full-length robe worn by men in their homes to keep warm. The precursor to the dressing gown or smoking jacket but far more opulent. This one was made of red satin damask, with an embroidered hem and a soft velvet collar. The gown was padded, Clem suspected with wool, and the interior fabric was a blue wool damask. The banyan was heavy, comfortable and incredibly warm. She wore it with a hitched cloth belt. Whoever the man was who had owned it, he had been small enough for it to be a decent fit for Clem, even if she had to gather a few inches up over the belt. She suspected it was made for him in his old age, as she was sure some of the stains on the collar were made by food. Given the state of the elbows, he may have also occasionally leant on his plate.
When she had started to unpack all the old clothes, she realised she was enjoying the clues about their occupants just as much as the design and fabric. In one of the plain gowns she had found a piece of paper with a scribbled note; a soldier’s uniform had a long pink ribbon tucked away in a pocket; in a child’s pair of breeches she found a shrivelled conker and she had laughed, thinking that Leo and William no doubt had an old conker in one of their pockets right at this moment.
Recollecting herself she shook her head.
‘This is an original. I probably shouldn’t be wearing it and I’m going to make a copy, but for now it’s perfect and no one can tell me off. You should see me in the turban as well; it’s got a matching gold silk turban but, honestly, it’s so hot in it that I overheat.’
‘You’ll be glad of that in winter, then,’ said Mari knowingly. ‘I bet this place is a nightmare to keep warm.’
Just then Ginny came in with two coffees, and Clem dashed over to help her with the tray. Mari waited until Ginny had left and sipped her drink thoughtfully.
‘You’re not what I expected an English lady to be like.’
Clem snorted. ‘You and me both. Remember, I’ve only been a lady for a few months. Well, I’ve been one since birth, but you know, my mother never mentioned it.’
As the two girls sat by the fire drinking their coffee, Clem related her parents’ love story.
‘…and so she ran away from all this to be with Da.’
Mari sipped her coffee quietly until Clem looked at her with a challenge on her brow.
‘What? Don’t you believe me?’
Mari sat back and looked around the room. ‘From what you said about your mother, she was extremely happy with her life before she met your father? So I don’t think she was running away from all this.’ Mari swept her arm around the room. ‘I think it was more a case of her giving it up. And I think that’s even more powerful.’
Clem looked at her, feeling emotional, and nodded. ‘I was right about you. You see to the heart of things.’ Slapping her hands on her thighs she stood up. ‘Right. Enough of the past. Let’s have a look at your dress.’
Mari began to walk towards the other end of the room where Clem had placed the dress bag, holding her coffee, but Clem very firmly told her to leave her cup where it was.
‘No food or drink at that end. And don’t look at me like I’m going to bite you. I just get a bit shouty when it comes to my work.’ Smiling, she took the sting out of her words and waited until Mari smiled back.
‘Excellent, now let the dog see the rabbit.’
The next few minutes were silent as Clem frowned, tutted and scowled. Turning the dress inside out and checking through all the seams. Nylon was a horrible fabric, and the colour was awful for Mari’s alabaster skin.
‘Don’t you like it?’
In many ways, Clem was utterly cloth-eared. She was certainly capable of reading the room and was aware of other people’s feelings. However, on most occasions she was just moving too fast between projects to stop and think about her actions. Either that or she was so deeply engrossed on a piece of work she was deaf, dumb and blind to everything except the thread in front of her. Happily, on this rare occasion she did hear the worried tone in her new friend’s voice as Mari continued.
‘It’s just, it was the only one they had for my height and size. They said I looked beautiful in it?’
‘Of course you looked beautiful. You could stand in a sack of potatoes and look beautiful. You look like a sodding Rhine maiden for God’s sake. No, what I was frowning over was the seam allowance. How much bigger do you think you’ll get?’
Jumping up, Clem grabbed a measuring tape and threw it around Mari’s waist and then measured the dress.
‘Nope, this won’t make it.’
‘Could you sew a panel into it?’
Clem appeared to consider the idea and then rejected it, making up some guff about the tension of the fabric. The fact was, the second she had opened the dress bag she had vowed inwardly to make Mari a brand new dress.
‘Okay, here’s what we can do. I can make you the same dress again, but this time allow for your bumpier figure. Or I can make you a new one? One that you would choose if there was a room of a hundred dresses that were all your size and not the only one on the rack?’
Mari looked at her worriedly.
‘I’m not sure I can actually afford either option. We’re busy saving for a deposit and I don’t want to waste my money on a second dress. Not that it’s a waste, oh God,’ Mari sounded increasingly flustered, ‘that was so rude of me. I didn’t mean that at all, I just, well money’s tight you know.’
She trailed away, wondering if Clem did really know. She said she grew up in a little terrace house in near poverty, but now she sat in a fancy silk dressing gown in a huge ballroom in a massive castle. What could she really know about money being tight?
‘Tell you what. This is my treat. I still owe your dad for bed and board the other night, so this is my way of repaying my debt. Plus, I’ve got nothing to do; you’d be doing me an enormous favour.’
Mari looked horrified. ‘I don’t want charity!’
‘Well, then you’re a bloody fool. Charity is not an insult, it’s a way that a person can help a stranger. When our neighbours brought round traybakes and casseroles that they happened to have left over, do you think any of us was fooled? Do you think we looked at their charity and thought they were insulting us? No, we thought they cared for us and we ate it with gratitude. Although Mum said I shouldn’t ask for fewer mushrooms in the pilaf rice. That apparently was ungrateful!’
Mari laughed and Clem let out a sigh of relief.
‘Look, how about this. Afterwards, if I ever need to borrow the dress for a show, then you’ll be happy to lend it back to me.’
‘So you’d be lending it to me?’
‘If that makes you happier then yes, consider this a permanent loan.’
Mari paused and then nodded her head.
‘That’s a deal. Now should I put this dress on to give you an idea of what it looks like?’
‘No need. I can already see that in here,’ she tapped her temple, ‘now let’s take some measurements and I’ll start a few sketches and you can tell me what you make of them. What height heels will you be wearing?’
‘I won’t be wearing heels.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. You have to wear heels; they improve the line of the dress plus it gives you a great posture.’
‘I won’t be wearing heels.’
‘It’s your wedding day!’ Clem was trying not to look shocked. It was hard to imagine attending a formal function in anything less than two inches and this was her wedding day!
‘What are you? A hippy?’
‘I am five foot eleven and a half. I’ll be eight months pregnant and I will not be wearing heels.’
Clem paused and then shrugged. She could sense a losing battle, no matter how much she wanted to fight it.
As the two girls sat back by the fire, Clem started to furiously scribble sketches and pass them to Mari for her comments.
Mari said she had wanted frills because frills were apparently bridal and pretty. But when she had looked in the mirror she thought she looked like a walrus. Clem was busy sketching a few ideas and looked up absentmindedly.
‘No, more like one of those knitted loo roll cosies.’
There was a moment of silent horror on Clem’s behalf when she realised that that was the sort of thing that she wasn’t supposed to say out loud.
Looking up from her sketchpad, she saw Mari’s look of astonishment turn into a bellow of laughter. From that point on both girls relaxed and the design process continued like a dream.
‘Incidentally, when talking to pregnant brides as well as not referring to them as loo roll holders I don’t think you are supposed to call them “bumpy” either.’
‘No loo rolls, no bumps. We’ve got a right fussy one here, Abdul,’ she said to the cat, who had made himself comfortable by the fire.
With her height, Clem had decided that Mari could pull off a huge veil and train with a very simple sheath dress with an empire line.
‘If anything, I want to highlight your pregnancy. Make the little one part of the ceremony?’
Mari enthusiastically agreed, happy to make the dress the centre of attention rather than herself.
‘I’m not demure, I’m not a shrinking violet, I stand out. I know that.’ And then tentatively she added, ‘But I don’t want to look a fool either. And it would be nice to look pretty for once.’
Clem jumped up from her chair and gave her a huge hug. Clem thought how funny it was for someone as big and self-assured as Mari to be having self-doubts. She was tall and strong, she had beautiful thick blonde hair, a man who clearly doted on her and had zero freckles. Her life was close to perfect. She was even pregnant, which Clem didn’t think was that marvellous, but Mari seemed thrilled by the prospect. No, some people just didn’t know they were born.
Eventually, with a sketch that they were both happy with, they made plans for a fitting in a week’s time. As Mari had been chatting about life in the glen and about the village and her friends and family, an idea had begun to form in Clem’s mind. Almost distractedly, she saw Mari to the door and then wondered who she could turn to for help. She could ask Miss Farano but Clem wasn’t confident that she would have the knowledge that Clem was after. She needed someone that knew the ins and outs of the whole community, someone like Moira. In fact, Moira Fitzallen was probably the perfect person. Grabbing her keys, Clem drove over to Moira’s to see if her idea would work.