Page 106 of The Wedding Dress Repair Shop
We had a nice evening at Pearl’s. As I was leaving she suggested I might like to go to church with her and Simon next morning.
I said perhaps I would one day, but I wasn’t really a churchgoer and also had quite a lot to do.
Simon looked relieved. I was sure he looked forward to having Pearl to himself for a little while every Sunday morning!
It might be peaceful and relaxing to go to a service at Jericho’s End some time and sit looking at that lovely window, but this morning I planned to cut out the pieces for the sofa cover and start tacking them together.
I spent the whole morning working on it, with the radio to keep me company, and the only time I went out was when I had a sudden impulse to look at the railed garden in the centre of the mews. Golightly escorted me, in a proprietorial kind of way, as if keen to point out the finer points: the ornamental cherry, with a crescent of bedding plants on either side, and the various shrubs. I recognized a rhododendron, but that was about the extent of my gardening knowledge.
Thom appeared at lunchtime bearing the gift of a freshly baked loaf for me – apparently baking bread was now one of his hobbies – and the smell of it was too delicious to resist. I suggested he and Jester come in and I’d find cheese and pickles to go with it.
Jester went to explore Golightly’s dinner bowl and practically jumped out of his velvety skin when the cat suddenly popped up out of his box.
Cat-in-the-box again – I think if anyone made them, they’d be a real seller. I put this idea to Thom, who said you could probably buy the mechanism and maybe he’d give it a go one of these days.
*
Our second attic clearing session, like the previous one, was exhausting but fun.
Honey decided we wouldn’t try to clear a way to the things in the second room that Priceless Interiors had spotted, because she said they could do that themselves, if they were really interested, and it would make it much easier for us to work in there once they’d taken what they wanted.
Instead, we concentrated on finishing the first room, which went a lot quicker than last time, mostly because there were no more pieces of monumental Victorian furniture to shift.
Once again, we didn’t find any hidden treasures, though Honey took a fancy to a small marquetry table, and said she’d find somewhere to put it. There was a dismantled ancient carved four-poster bed, too, which she decided to get Priceless Interiors to renovate for her.
‘It can go in one of the guest bedrooms,’ she decided, and I thought how much George would love that!
My only bit of excitement came when I opened a battered tin trunk and found it filled with an odd jumble of clothes and other items.
Thom suggested it might have once been a dressing-up box for the children of the house, because there was such a mishmash of things: a parasol; gloves; a long black cloak, a little moth-eaten; a hat with a cockade; and a large cartwheel hat, adorned with puffs of net and disintegrating fabric flowers.
I picked out some gloves, two fans and the parasol, then discovered a large paisley shawl at the bottom.
‘I think these are more early Victorian than Regency, but they’ll do for dressing Rosa-May’s trunks when they go on display.’
The moths must have attacked the cloak before it was put in the trunk, because everything else was mercifully free of holes, but I thought I might just try the old trick of sealing everything in a plastic bag and leaving it in a freezer for twenty-fourhours, just in case. Honey said there was room in hers and we put them in when we went downstairs.
George would probably faint at the thought, but there was nothing in good condition, or of any great value.
Later, over our takeaway, Thom said he’d heard from Bruno.
‘His rheumatism is much better since he’s been going to a thermal spring for hot mud baths,’ he said with a grin. ‘He wanted to know how I was doing with the orders and what new work had come in.’
‘Hetty’s just the same,’ Simon said. ‘She might have retired, but she hasn’t lost interest. I’ll tell her about the cartwheel hat. She probably wore one just like it when she was a girl.’
Honey had given him the hat, since he was very taken with it, but she said mildly now, ‘I don’t think Hetty is quitethatold, Simon!’
Then she asked Pearl how the museum website was coming along.
‘It’ll be up and running well before you open and we can add the online shop later, if you want to,’ she said. ‘I’ve been laminating the information cards as Garland’s sent the copy over. I’m trying to keep on top of those.’
‘I still have several dresses to go, so there’ll be quite a few more,’ I told her.
‘Great!’ said Honey with satisfaction. ‘And I’m writing the story of each dress for the big storyboards that will be dotted around the rooms … and maybe we could have each one printed on a separate sheet to sell in the shop.’
‘I could print those as A4 landscape and then fold them into three,’ suggested Pearl.
‘That would look good. Even if we only charge fifty pence for them, it all adds up,’ I said. ‘Not everyone buys an expensive glossy guidebook.’
