‘I’m in my seventies now.’
‘So?’
Daphne’s face relaxes. ‘Bless you, but I need to be realistic. I’m not going to start making clothes now.’
‘Why not?’ Christina doesn’t mean to be pushy, except clearly Daphne does need a push. The designs are too good to go unmade.
‘I wouldn’t know the first place to start,’ Daphne says.
Christina stops to think. She wouldn’t know the first place to start either, but surely they can find out. There must be a seamstress who can do it. Someone experienced at interpreting designs.
‘But –’ she starts.
‘No.’ Daphne’s eyes are bright and hard as they stare into Christina’s.
‘My husband’s … unwell,’ Daphne continues. ‘I appreciate your interest, but I just don’t have the time to think about anything like making dresses. The sketches are for my own diversion.’
Except, thinks Christina, Daphne brought them here. They’re not at her house. For some reason, she wanted them here, where she’s surrounded by clothes and people who are interested in them.
Christina’s not going to pry further, however. She’s just going to let herself think about it all for a while. Because that tingle of curiosity she felt earlier is now a flush of inspiration, and she feels more motivated than she has in a long while.
‘All right,’ she says to Daphne. ‘I understand.’ And they chat instead about the latest fashions from Paris, and whether or not American designers are any good.
That night, though, Christina lies in bed thinking about what might become of Daphne’s designs, and when she falls asleep she dreams of dresses.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Margot blinks and feels disoriented for a few seconds, not sure if it’s morning or afternoon. She dozed off sitting on the chaise longue on the verandah in the sun. Which makes it afternoon, because the verandah faces west.
‘Oh,’ she says as she sits up, feeling the need to remark on the fact that she’s inadvertently had an afternoon nap.
Wasn’t Lavinia sitting next to her? She looks around, as if the action will produce her aunt, but it doesn’t.
‘Lavinia!’ she calls and there’s no response. Odd. Usually they’re always in shouting distance of each other.
It’s unlikely Lavinia has left the house – she needs help going down the stairs to the street – but Margot gets up to look for a note or some other hint.
‘Lavinia!’ she tries again, and again there’s no response.
She waits a few seconds, trying to hear if the loo is in use, but there’s only silence in the house and the sound of masts clinking outside. It must be windy to make the normally placid Mosman Bay waters choppy enough to produce the clinking.
The back door is closed so it’s unlikely Lavinia is in the garden, where she ventures to gather flowers from time to time.
Margot is turning to start up the stairs when a flash of colour catches the corner of her eye. Lavinia’s red cardigan. But not where she’d expect it to be.
She pushes open the back door and rushes to where her aunt is lying on the grass, facing Margot, with her eyes closed.
Margot can’t quite understand what she’s looking at to begin with. ‘Lavinia?’ she whispers, not sure if her aunt is asleep and doesn’t want to be disturbed. But why would she fall asleep out here?
Margot bends over Lavinia, who moans.
‘Lavinia!’ Margot’s heart is beating so fast she thinks she’ll collapse herself.
More moaning, but Lavinia puts her hand on Margot’s.
‘Oh, thank god,’ Margot breathes. ‘What’s happened?’
Lavinia opens one eye. ‘I fell.’