Page 25 of A Fresh Start at Bramble Cottage
“Could you pass me a couple of those bin bags?” she asked.
Jayde grunted and rolled off the bed. “Here.”
Vicky took the bags and began to tuck the clothes into them — one lot for the dump, one for the charity shop. Jayde was looking in the other drawers. She pulled open the bottom one, and gasped. “Oh, wow! Look at this.”
The drawer was full of silk and satin lingerie, in soft shades of cream and buttercup yellow, pink and baby-blue, much of it extravagantly trimmed with lace.
“This is fabulous.” Sulks were forgotten. “Whatever was the old duck doing with all this stuff?”
“It must be what she wore when she was young, and she kept it.” Vicky pulled out a full-length wrap, with bell sleeves and a silk sash. It was so soft that it rippled through her hands like water.
“Put it on,” Jayde urged. She had pulled out something for herself — a black satin petticoat with a lace front panel and shoelace straps. “I’m going to try this on.” She danced off to her own bedroom with her trophy.
Vicky shrugged into the wrap and swirled in front of the cheval mirror in the corner. It was so beautiful, a delicate shade of lilac, trimmed with lace. A faint exotic fragrance clung to its folds.
Was this what Aunt Molly had worn for her lover, the poet, the painter? What sort of life had she lived, to have owned such beautiful things? They must have been expensive. The label inside was woven in pink on cream —Fabriqué Elisa Roselli / Paris.
“Ta dah!” Jayde came back in, posing to show off the black petticoat. “What do you think? I could wear this down the club.”
Vicky eyed it doubtfully. “Well . . . I suppose . . .”
“These slip dresses are all the thing. That wrap thing’s gorgeous. Are you going to keep it?”
Vicky turned to gaze at it in the mirror again. “Yes, I think I will.”
“Jeremy will love it.”
Vicky laughed dryly. “I don’t think it would suit him.”
“This is fun.” Jayde dived into the drawer again and pulled out a full-length cream silk nightgown, followed by a scarlet camisole and a lace bra. “Wow — this is amazing! I wonder what else we can find? Have you looked in the attic yet?”
“Not yet.”
Jayde dumped her trophies on the bed and darted out to the landing, and Vicky heard her footsteps on the narrow stairs up to the attic. A couple of thumps — she could only hope she wouldn’t come through the ceiling. Then Jayde’s voice, bubbling with excitement.
“Vicky — come and look at this!”
She slipped off the wrap and hurried up the steep, twisting flight to the attic.
A sharp aroma of dust and old wood attacked her nostrils, making her sneeze. A bare lightbulb swinging from the apex of the roof cast weird shadows over various bits of junk — a couple of broken chairs, a cardboard box of worn-out boots and shoes. And a pair of ancient steamer trunks.
Jayde had opened one of them and was twirling around with a giant feather fan.
“Where did all this come from? It looks like your aunt Molly led a pretty wild life when she was young.” She plunged back into the trunk and pulled out a bundle of strands of beads. “What on earth is this?”
Vicky shook her head, laughing. “Heaven knows!”
They began to carefully untangle the strands. It took several minutes, and when they had finished they weren’t much wiser about what it was.
“These bits look like they would be shoulder straps,” Jayde mused, holding it up. “Then you’ve got a kind of necklace. And then this bit might go round your hips and down over your tush.But there’s nothing over your boobs — it must have been worn with something else.”
Vicky laughed. “I don’t think so. Oh, Aunt Molly — what a girl you were! Haven’t you seen that film,Moulin Rouge? These are the kind of costumes they wore.”
“But that was just a film — not real life.”
“The Moulin Rouge was a real place —isa real place. It’s a nightclub, a cabaret, in Paris. The dancers there wear feathers and these exotic costumes, and some of them are nearly naked. It’s very famous — haven’t you ever heard of it?”
Jayde shrugged. “I might have done. Do you think Molly actually was a dancer there?”
