“A stomacher.”
Ophelia glanced up at Penrose. She’d heard a faint note of excitement in his tone. “That’s right. A stomacher. In the Varieties, we always had them on our Shakespeare costumes. Old-fashioned, they are.”
“In the Charles Perrault version of ‘Cinderella,’” Penrose said slowly, “the elder wicked stepsister wears red velvet with French trimming, and the younger a gold-flowered cloak and a diamond stomacher.”
“But this isn’t the stepsister’s costume.”
“True. But the more pressing concern is, if Miss Pinet’s gown was identical to this costume, with the exception of the stomacher—and you’re certain they are identical?”
“Positively.”
“—then the question is: what happened to the stomacher on Miss Pinet’s gown?”
“I know what’s happening here, Professor, and I can’t say I fancy it.”
“I cannot fathom what you mean.”
“Your eyes have that glow about them. Tell me what’s so intriguing to you about the notion of a stomacher.”
“You’ll laugh.”
“What of it?”
“Very well. It came to my attention, when reading a rare first edition of Charles Perrault’s ‘Cendrillon’—he’s the chap from the seventeenth century who penned many of these well-known French fairy tales—”
“Cooked them up, you mean.”
“Not precisely. More, well, committed them to paper and ink, shall we say. At any rate, although the standard versions of the tale assign the diamond stomacher to one of Cinderella’s stepsisters, in that rare first edition, Cinderella herself wore the stomacher when she attended the prince’s ball.”
“What are you angling at? That whoever designed this costume somehow had read that version of the tale?”
“Does it not appear to be the case? Although I have, in all my years of scholarship, never met anyone else who has encountered that version of the tale. The volume was in a forgotten box in a storeroom of a library at the Sorbonne—a university here in Paris. It looked to have been untouched for decades. Although, it was a few years ago that I myself examined it.”
When the professor started rambling about universities and old books, Ophelia felt like a sinking stone. It was easier to make light of his fairy tale obsession. Then the mean little voice in the back of her head couldn’t say, He’s too fine for the likes of you.
“There is more,” Penrose said. “According to that version of the tale, H?tel Malbert was Cinderella’s home—her father’s home, where she lived with her stepmother and stepsisters before she married. Her father was a Marquis de la Roque-Fabliau. The current marquis Malbert, and the Misses Eglantine and Austorga, are direct descendants of a son borne by Cinderella’s stepmother, so they count both the wicked stepmother and Cinderella’s father among their forebears.”
Ophelia burst out laughing.
“Laugh all you wish. It is historical fact. Cinderella’s name was Isabeau d’Amboise. She married a minor prince and lived in his chateau in the Loire Valley for the rest of her days. I have visited her grave.”
“No, no, it’s only, well, if you met the Misses Malbert, you’d reckon they were simply your garden variety wicked stepsisters with nothing else mixed in.”
Ophelia and Penrose inspected the costume. Its stitches were so tiny a mouse might’ve made them. Inside of the bodice they found a white label with embroidered words:
Maison Fayette
Couturière
Rue de la Paix
Paris
Ophelia pointed to the word Couturière. “What is a—?”
“Dressmaker—a rather grand one, not simply a person who stitches. A designer of garments, really, along the lines of the famed Charles Worth.”
“Now that I think of it—Madame Fayette is the lady who designed the ball gowns for Miss Eglantine and Miss Austorga.”