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“To Horrible Hugo, the man we can’t stand?” Alexandra asked, quoting Izzie back to herself. “What it is that makes him so awful?”

“He’s always thought that Mum and I were below him.”

“Then why did he marry your sister?” asked Alexandra.

She sighed. “She was beautiful, and she was completely caught up in him.”

“How so?” asked Alexandra before taking a sip of her tea.

“As soon as Hugo took Sylvia out for the first time, she started to change. She’d always paid close attention to her appearance, but she began to alter how she behaved, how she spoke. Suddenly she had no time for us at home. It was all dancing at nightclubs and going to the theater and spending time with his friends who were far more sophisticated than anyone we associated with—even Mum’s customers. It was almost as though she started to believe she was too good for all of us on Glengall Road, but she seemed happy, so I was happy for her.

“Then Hugo asked Sylvia to marry him.” Izzie cradled her cup as she stared into it. “I’m her only sister, so you would think that it would be obvious I would be asked to be a bridesmaid in the wedding, wouldn’t you?”

Alexandra nodded.

“Well, when she first told me she was engaged she was so overjoyed she started talking about what kind of dress Mum should design me,” she said. “A week passes, and Sylvia sits me down. She says that she’s had a think and wouldn’t it be best if Hugo’s friend’s wife Claire stood up for her? Sylvia claimed that Mrs. Pearsall, her future mother-in-law, thought it would make more sense for a grown woman to stand up with her. Besides, Sylvia didn’t want to burden me with the job.”

“But you didn’t think being your sister’s bridesmaid would be a burden at all, did you?” asked Alexandra gently.

“No. I think Sylvia let Mrs. Pearsall convince her that if I wasn’t up there at the altar with her it would be easier to keep Mum and me and the dress shop quiet.”

“But you’re family,” said Alexandra.

“That didn’t matter. Sylvia told us that we weren’t to talk about the shop at the wedding, and she refused to let Mum make her wedding dress. Mrs. Pearsall took her to Worth instead to find something ‘more suitable.’ As though Mum wasn’t just as skilled as the seamstresses at Worth.

“The entire wedding was terrible. Hardly anyone spoke to Mum and me at the church, and no one seemed to know who we were. But the wedding breakfast was the worst. Mum and I were stuck in a corner of the room, and Sylvia didn’t once look our way. We left early.”

“I can understand why,” said Alexandra.

“Sylvia has always hated the shop. She used to talk all the time about what things were like when Dad was alive. He came from a good family, went to the right sort of schools, knew the right sort of people. He was in his pupilage, training to become a barrister, when he met Mum. She was working as a seamstress at his tailor’s, and they met when he came in for a fitting. Mum said that once his suit was finished, he came in the following week for a pair of trousers. Then it was a shirt, a jacket.” She smiled. “Finally, when he had nearly an entire new wardrobe, he plucked up the courage when her employer was called to the telephone to ask her to dine with him.

“Mum said that they fell in love so fast she hardly gave a thought to the fact that she hadn’t met his family before they became engaged. When she did, she realized that marrying a seamstress was not what the Sheltons had in mind for their only son.”

“Oh no,” murmured Alexandra.

“Mum and Dad married, and they had Sylvia and me. They were happy until one day Dad was struck down by a lorry on his way home from work,” she said.

“How tragic,” whispered Alexandra.

It was more tragic than Izzie would admit to Alexandra. She’d only been seven when it happened, but over the years, Mum had given her little snatches of the story until she’d finally been able to piece it all together. The sudden shut-off of income that had sent the family teetering on the line of poverty.

“Mum had no family of her own, so she opened the dress shop out of necessity,” she explained. “Without it, I don’t know what she would have done.”

It was one of the things about her mother she was most proud of. Even in dire straits Mum had managed not only to survive but to build something successful. How Sylvia could turn her nose up at that, Izzie didn’t understand.

Alexandra gave an embarrassed little laugh. “And here I was feeling sorry for myself because I sometimes feel awkward speaking to other women because I’m an honorable.”

Izzie smiled, appreciating Alexandra’s self-deprecation.

“It sounds as though your mother was an extraordinary woman,” said Alexandra.

“She was. She taught me everything I know about sewing.”

And yet…

How often had she shown Mum a sketch of a potential design for a customer only to be turned down? How often had Mum told Izzie she wasn’t ready to run the business? How little had Mum really trusted her with that in the end she’d left half the shop to Sylvia?

As though sensing that she needed a change of topic, Alexandra said, “And now you’re here.”