The Island House (68 page)

A passionate tale of a woman ahead of her time.

Raised in rural Norfolk, EllenGowan’s childhood was poor but blessed with affection. Resilience, spirit, and one great talent will eventually carry her far from such humble beginnings. In time, she will become the witty, celebrated, and very beautiful Madame Ellen, dressmaker to the nobility of England, the Great Six Hundred. A meeting ofthe romance of Jane Austen, the social commentary of Charles Dickens, and the very contemporary voice of Posie Graeme-Evans,
The Dressmaker
plunges the reader deep into Victorian England in all its rich and spectacular detail.

Read on for a look at Posie Graeme-Evans’s

The Dressmaker

Currently available from Atria Books Excerpt from
The Dressmaker
copyright © 2010 by Milennium Pictures Pty. Limited and Posie Graeme-Evans

CHAPTER 1

T
HERE IS
a proverb that the salt air of the Fen country breeds folk who are constitutionally hardy. Those that it does not kill. On the first of August 1843, Lammas Day, Ellen Gowan’s thirteenth birthday had at last arrived. And today, though she did not know it, the saying would play out in her own life.

As light lifted in the village of Wintermast within distant sight of the Norfolk Broads, pink dawn faded to a haze of gold and pearl. The reapers had been busy all the preceding week in the fields, and the sap of fresh-cut meadow grasses sweetened the air.

Ellen woke as the walls of her white bedroom flushed to rose. She pulled back the window lace and sighed with a happiness so profound, her chest ached. Finally, it was here—it had begun! For, as well as her birthday, this was the final day of term for her father’s pupils—the day scholars that the Reverend Edwin Gowan, Curate of Wintermast, taught in the front room of their rectory. In the coming autumn, five of the seven boys would leave for their grown-up schools. And Connie, Ellen’s mother, with the willing assistance of her daughter (and their servant Polly’s bossier interference) had prepared a feast to celebrate both these great events. Downstairs, beneath a covering of muslin, all the treats were laid out in the pantry ready to be displayed to their guests. Every dish, every bowl and platter they possessed was mounded high with delicacies.

Ellen had a new dress, too, though she was not supposed to know. Her mama had made it for her. She had seen it as she climbed the stairs to her room one evening. A glimmering shape, it
had lain partly finished across her mother’s bed. That glimpse was enough to show that the dress was too small to be Connie’s.

It now hung in her parents’ armoire among their own few clothes, for there was nowhere else to hide a surprise of such magnitude in their small cottage. Perhaps, when Ellen put it on, her mother’s dressing mirror would help her see if the hue suited her. She was particular about such things. She knew that each person looked good in some colors and not at all in others.

Thirteen. It seemed a great age. Ellen sighed with the responsibility. And then she giggled. Serious thoughts at the beginning of this glorious day? No!

A soft tap came at her bedroom door. Edwin and Constance Gowan were considerate parents.

“Ellen?” This was her mother’s gentle voice “Are you awake? We have something for you.”

Ellen lifted the latch to greet her smiling mother and father. “Certainly, Mama!”

“Happy birthday, dearest child. Salutations!” As he entered the room, Edwin Gowan leaned down from his substantial height, careful not to knock his brow against the roof beam of the low room.

“How
splendid
you look, Papa!”

Ellen’s handsome, if gaunt, father had dressed for today’s celebrations with particular care. Over his usual suit of black canonicals—well brushed and sponged by Connie—he wore his doctoral gown from Cambridge. The silk had faded from its original scarlet, and yet the wide sleeves and cloaklike fall of the garment lent the Reverend Doctor Gowan a startling glamour.

Ellen lifted her face to be kissed. Edwin hesitated. His daughter
was
a child still, yet she was changing. Morning light declared the truth. Something swept his heart. Wistfulness? Regret?

“He does look splendid. I do agree.” With eyes only for her daughter, Connie had not seen Edwin’s expression change. “But you, also, must look all you should on your birthday, Ellen.” Stepping
forward, Connie Gowan displayed their gift. Across her arms lay a mass of flower-sprigged silk, jade green and pink on an ivory ground. This was not a dress. It was a gown. The first that their daughter had ever been given. For Ellen, all the promise of that one quick glance so many nights ago was here fulfilled.

“Oh,
Mama.
” The child was awed. She did not know that the gift had been created from the last dress remaining in her mother’s trousseau. That gown had been packed away in lavender years ago for just such a time, and Connie’s nimble fingers and many evenings working by lamplight had wrought the transformation.

“And, a lady must have dancing slippers.” From behind his back Edwin proffered the shoes with a flourish. Fashioned from scraps of the same silk, he had cut and stitched the soles himself.

Ellen could not know that these would be her father’s last loving gift.

A kiss for each of her parents and Ellen ran to the window to inspect her presents. She was oblivious of her nightgown and bare feet. “Oh, this is
so
delightful. How lucky I am. Lucky, lucky, lucky!”

Edwin grinned at his daughter’s exuberance, and Connie’s breath caught as she looked at him. The yearning, the intensity of the passion she had felt at their first meeting remained in her still. Feeling her glance, he turned and smiled warmly. “Well, wife, we may safely say Ellen delights in your work.”

“And yours, dearest husband.”

Edwin slipped an arm around Connie’s waist. They stood close watching their daughter with pleasure as she twirled and posed, until Connie, with a start, said, “Edwin, please ask Polly to bring up a can of water. We must dress.”

“Alas, a gentleman has no place in a lady’s dressing chamber. I shall do your bidding, Madame, with dispatch.” Edwin bowed and backed away as if in the presence of a queen. Considering the lowness of the door frame and a floor distinguished by its uneven surface and little else other than a rag rug, Edwin managed a graceful departure.

“
Come, Ellen, we must dress your hair. By its current state, you might have slept in a hedge. The tangles!”

But Connie Gowan was only pretending severity. Especially when her pretty daughter burrowed into her arms declaring, “I do love you, Mama. And Papa, too. This is the best day of my life!”

The washing took a little time and dressing the hair rather more. And all because Ellen could not sit still. The girl’s glance continually strayed to the dress laid out across her parents’ bed, and where her eyes went, her body twisted to follow.

“There. It is done.” Connie stepped back to survey her work. Ellen’s hair (
Storm dark,
she thought,
magnificent!
) was naturally abundant. And wild. But Connie had restrained the curls with pins and pomade, weaving them into a shining plaited corona. Ellen bore the unfamiliar weight well, since the carriage of her shoulders was naturally, gracefully proud. True, Ellen
was
rather young to put up her hair, but today’s party was as grand as the Gowans could manage. Where would be the harm in permitting the child to feel just a little grown up on such a special day?

“Can I put the gown on now, Mama? Oh please. Please!”

“Very well. But the silk is delicate. It will tear if roughly handled.”

Ellen colored. “I am careful with all my clothes. You have taught me to be!”

Connie hugged her outraged daughter. She raised one of Ellen’s hands to her cheek. “Do not be insulted, dear one. The silk is precious to me.” She did not say why, as she turned her daughter toward the window. “Now stand in the light. Let me see if I have judged your form well enough.” Perhaps the fabric whispered of the past as Connie picked up the gown for she was smiling. “Raise your arms, child.” Ellen did as instructed though it was hard not to fidget.

“Can I see, Mama?”

“In a moment.” Connie stood with her head to one side. She
was pleased. The cut of the gown was simple, and that had been the correct instinct. Youth needs little adornment. Sleeves of puffed, white voile had been attached to a tight bodice descending in a point to the voluminous skirt. The silk was light enough, however, to move pleasingly with its wearer, and a single flounce at the hem, finished with silk cord of deep rose, was decorative without being fussy.

As Connie laced her impatient daughter, she privately reflected that a girl of thirteen was sometimes a curious object. Soon the child must be supplanted by the woman, and yet the round, high brow, the soft cheeks, and bright color of childhood lingered still in Ellen’s face. For those who did not wish to acknowledge the passing of time, perhaps that was a comfort—and Connie knew that Edwin was among that number. But for those with eyes to see—for a mother—each day past thirteen the child walked further away as the woman-to-be stepped a little closer. As Connie tied the sash of ivory ribbon tight, she was both sad and proud to observe the changes in her daughter.

In this last year, Ellen had begun to grow—the deep hem on the skirt acknowledged that fact. Soon, perhaps, she would be taller than her mother. Ellen’s shoulders, too, were wider than Connie’s had ever been, and extra room had been allowed in the bodice of the gown. As yet, there were only the smallest of swellings upon Ellen’s upper ribs, and if her daughter seemed oblivious to the promise of this changed contour, Connie was not.

“No one will ever guess, will they, Mama?”

Connie startled from her reverie. “What, child?”

“That you fashioned this lovely thing? It does not look at all homemade.” Ellen twirled away and picked up one edge of the skirt, as if to display a train. “Only from Paris, my dear, might we expect such excellence of cut. The work is too fine by far to come from
English
hands.” The girl caught the glacial superiority of a society lady all too well.

Lady Greatorex to perfection,
thought Connie Gowan. “Perhaps
they will think you made the gown, Ellen. Your skill with the needle has much improved.”

It was true. A fair woman, Connie knew that Ellen’s abilities had begun to approach her own. Sewing was an indispensible art in any household—especially a poor one—but she had been delighted for more than practical reasons to watch Ellen’s talents fulfill their early promise in this last year.

When Ellen had sewn her first sampler at age five, it had been clear that her skills were precocious. For Connie’s daughter there were none of the badly set stitches, no knotting and twisting of the yarn that distinguishes the work of a novice. The back of that first piece had been as neat as the front. And by her seventh birthday, Ellen had drawn and cut out the pattern of a dress by herself, and sewn the garment together with almost no assistance. Her choice of fabric, too, demonstrated an instinct for color and an appreciation of style that Connie privately believed to be inborn. Such things could only be encouraged, they could not be taught. Clever and kind was Ellen. What mother could be more blessed?

Why then, when she gazed at her daughter’s happiness, did Connie feel such dread? She tried to tell herself that these were natural fears, the concerns any fond parent might feel as her child approached womanhood. But in her heart she knew the truth. Each week that passed showed that Ellen would grow into a beauty that she herself had never quite attained. Yet, if not guarded by wealth and position, that same grace could prove a blight for those upon whom fate bestowed its most capricious gift.

As Ellen turned this way and that, trying, without success, to see how the whole of the dress appeared in the looking glass, she caught her mother’s eye. “Is something wrong, Mama? Does the gown not look well?”