Page 2 of The Wedding Dress Repair Shop
‘I have someone coming to see me about a donation ofElizabethan gloves, so I’ll leave you ladies to it, then,’ George said, slightly regretfully.
Then he shook hands with Honey and headed off, looking, with his silver hair and neat, pointed beard, like the British Consul to a small foreign nation: Our Man in Havana, perhaps.
*
Honey’s hotel turned out to be Claridge’s, not a venue familiar to me, since it wasn’t one of my fiancé’s haunts … though I wouldn’t have been surprised to spot Marco’s uber-posh and snobbish mother there, with her coven: all thin, bony women of a certain age, with taut, wrinkle-free faces and crêpey necks.
But there was no sign of her, even though it seemed that the rest of the world were eager to take their tea there that afternoon. I didn’t see how they could squeeze us in, but at the sight of Honey, the staff immediately conjured up a table for two near a window. Such, I assumed, was the power of fame, presence, money and, it has to be said, a certain notoriety.
Still, I was quite sure that however scary my new-found relative appeared, the rumour that she ate her lovers when she’d tired of them wasgrosslyexaggerated!
As if she’d read my mind, she looked at me over the top of her menu with that strangely attractive and raffish smile tilting one corner of her scarlet lips.
‘This is my home from home. Do order whatever you fancy – this is my treat to celebrate finding a long-lost cousin.’
‘I’m not sure I can claim to be acousin,’ I said, once I’d made my choice from the menu. ‘But we must be connectedsomewhere.’
‘My great-uncle Hugo was the one for genealogy,’ Honeysaid, lavishly requesting two glasses of champagne to accompany our tea, which would probably send me to sleep at that time of day, especially since I’d skipped lunch. ‘I’ve recently inherited his house and there’s a huge family tree hanging in the hall. I’m descended from Rosa-May’s elder son and the last of that line. He was one of twin boys, but the younger brother vanished from the scene later. Hugo said family rumour had it that there had been a big quarrel and he’d run off to America, taking a piece of family jewellery with him to fund his new life, but Hugo never tried to trace him, so we don’t know what happened to him. That could be whereyoucome in, though, Garland.’
‘If so, the younger son, or his descendants, must have returned to the UK at some point,’ I said, interested. ‘It would be fun to try and find out, though I wouldn’t really know where to start looking, and anyway, I haven’t got time.’
‘Nor me, but I’ll set someone on to it,’ Honey said, decidedly.
A magnificent, tiered, porcelain cake stand had been set on the table and Honey now began wolfing down finger sandwiches, one after the other, as if she hadn’t eaten for a month, although the plate seemed to refill itself every time I took my eyes off it. Perhaps the waiters were all members of the Magic Circle, temping between engagements. That would account for the way they’d squeezed our table into the crowded room, too.
‘Do ’ave a butty, love,’ Honey said, assuming a broad Lancashire accent and pushing the cake stand nearer to me. ‘It’ll make me feel less greedy, though I missed lunch after seeing my agent so I could catch George before his next appointment, and I’mravenous. But I’m glad I did, as he’s brought us together. So now,dotell me more about yourself,’ she invited, before abandoning the sandwiches and biting into aminiature meringue, which exploded, enveloping her in a fine cloud of powdered sugar, which she waved away with one thin, elegant hand.
‘What has George already told you?’ I asked cautiously, when I’d finished a tiny smoked salmon sandwich.
I’d first met him at a weekend seminar on the conservation of historic costume and over the years we’d become friends. He was a great gossip – that air of ambassadorial reticence wastotallymisleading.
Honey wiped jammy hands on a napkin so snowy that it seemed like sacrilege to use it, and said, ‘Well, for a start, he said that when he’d once commented on your unusual Christian name, you’d explained that you’d been named after your actress ancestor. So naturally, once I’d offered to loan the collection to the V&A, he knew we must be related and thought I’d be interested. He also told me you work in the historical department of Beng & Briggs, Theatrical Costumiers.’
I nodded, since I’d just put a delicious morsel in my mouth that seemed to be a yummy orange mousse concoction, coated in thick white chocolate, or ‘enrobed’, as menus sometimes put it, although I always feel then that whatever it is describing should have an ermine border and an embroidered fleur-de-lis about it somewhere.
Then I swallowed what was probably my entire normal calorie intake for the day and explained: ‘I qualified in costume making and design, and did a work placement with Beng & Briggs. Then they offered me a permanent job and now I’m in line to take over the running of my department,’ I said proudly. ‘I’ve taken all kinds of courses in my free time, to broaden my skills, especially in historical costume construction, and I’ve also been involved in one or two projects to re-create gowns from old portraits.’
‘Yes, George said you’ve already got quite a name for yourself, despite still being in your early thirties, and he often seeks your opinion on the authenticity of a piece.’
‘I’m thirty-four,’ I said, which didn’t seem all that young to me, ‘and it’s very kind of George to say that, but he’s the real expert. I do enjoy making accurate copies of historic clothing, although, of course, at Beng & Briggs we’re only creating costumes thatlookhistorically authentic and effective on stage or on film.’
‘It all sounds fascinating … and actually, that’s given me an idea for a great way to kill someone,’ Honey said thoughtfully. ‘I mean, if you coated the inside of a suit of stage armour with something toxic, by the time they realized and got the actor out of it, it might be too late …’
While I stared at her in astonishment, she took out a pen and wroteArmed with Poisonup the inside of her left forearm, in letters big enough for me to read upside down.
She put the pen away again and her dark eyes refocused on me. ‘Where were we? Oh, yes, before we found you, George took me on a detour through the museum shop so I could see those miniature mannequins you have on sale there, dressed in copies of some of the costumes in the galleries. Lovely. I bought the one in the red-beaded Roaring Twenties flapper dress. George is going to have it sent to me.’
‘I think you’d suit that style of dress yourself,’ I suggested.
‘True, but then, when you’re tall and thin you look OK in pretty much anything,’ she said slightly complacently. ‘You obviously have a real talent for needlework.’
‘Mum was a theatrical dresser before she had me, and she used to make period costumes for my dolls. Dad was a stage lighting technician, but his hobby was woodwork and he carved three little wooden mannequins to display some ofthe dolls’ dresses on. That’s where I got the inspiration. I don’t sell many of them – they’re too expensive for the mass market – but fun to do and a good sideline.’
‘I can see why they’re expensive: all that hand sewing and fine detail on such a small scale,’ Honey said. ‘Those little black velvet-covered mannequin stands themselves are rather attractive.’
‘I have them specially made, though the first ones were hand-carved from wood by a friend, Ivo Gryffyn, like those Dad made for me. They were lovely, but then Ivo … stopped,’ I finished lamely, wondering, as I always did when I thought of him, where he was now and if he was happy doing whatever it was he had so suddenly abandoned his acting career and his friends for … including me, his oldest and, I’d thought,closestfriend.
‘Do you mean Ivo Gryffyn, the actor who played Gus Silvermann in those fantasy films?’ Honey asked, looking at me with some surprise. ‘He successfully transitioned from child actor to adult roles on the London stage, didn’t he, before suddenly giving it all up a few years ago and vanishing?’
