The Hat Shop on the Corner Read online

  About the Book

  Hats! Hats! Hats! Upbrims, sidesweeps, silks, ribbons and trims all become part of Ellie’s life when she inherits the little hat shop on Dublin’s South Anne Street. But the city is changing and Ellie must decide if she wants to follow the hat-making tradition of her mother or accept a generous offer to sell the shop.

  Encouraged by her friends, Ellie takes on the hat shop and her quirky designs and tempting millinery confections soon attract a rich assortment of customers all in search of the perfect hat.

  Creating hats for weddings, shows, fashion and fun, and falling for the charms of Rory Doyle along the way, Ellie is happier than she has ever been before. But as her fingers work their magic she discovers a lot can happen in the heart of a city like Dublin . . .

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Chapter Forty-three

  Chapter Forty-four

  Chapter Forty-five

  Chapter Forty-six

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Chapter Forty-nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-one

  Chapter Fifty-two

  Chapter Fifty-three

  Chapter Fifty-four

  Chapter Fifty-five

  Chapter Fifty-six

  Chapter Fifty-seven

  Chapter Fifty-eight

  Chapter Fifty-nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-one

  Chapter Sixty-two

  About the Author

  Also by Marita Conlon-McKenna

  Copyright

  THE HAT SHOP ON THE CORNER

  MARITA CONLON-McKENNA

  In memory of a wonderful aunt,

  Eleanor Murphy,

  and her little shop on South Anne Street.

  Acknowledgements

  To Bridget Higgins, milliner and hatmaker extraordinaire. Thank you for the wonderful day in Galway, showing me your craft and sharing with me the secrets of a milliner. Your passion is contagious and I fell madly in love with your wonderful hats.

  To Philip Treacy. Thank you for the beautiful hat, the warm welcome in Elizabeth Street, and the constant inspiration of your stunning designs and exquisite creations.

  To my mother, Mary, who when I was a little girl would lift down her hatboxes and with a rustle of tissue produce a gorgeous hat. So began the magic, as I watched her dress up to go out to the races or a stylish party!

  To Dublin, my city. Your streets burst with life and energy and your big old heart is so full of stories – it’s no wonder you are a city of writers.

  To the Royal Dublin Society Horse Show and Ladies’ Day. What a perfect day – sunshine, hats, frocks, champagne and horses and all the excitement of the competition.

  To the Mansion House, Dawson Street, Dublin.

  Thanks to The Mad Hatter, J. C. Brady, Halo and all the other wonderful hat shops that I visited.

  To my editor Francesca Liversidge, for making writing such an interesting pursuit, and to Nicky Jeanes, Deborah Adams, Vivien Garrett and all the team at Transworld.

  To my agent Caroline Sheldon. Assembling a hatbox is the very least of it! Thanks.

  To Gill, Simon, Declan, Geoff and all the team at Gill Hess, Dublin. Your hard work and good humour is much appreciated.

  To the Irish Booksellers who have cheered me along and been there from the start. Thanks. Your support is brilliant.

  To Anne Frances Doorly and ‘les girls’ – Ann Lawler, Grace Murphy, Yvonne Taylor, Karen Quinn, Helen O’Dowd and Mary Joy. Thanks for all the years of fun and friendship, girls’ nights and that special trip to Barcelona.

  To all my friends, old and new, and my lovely readers, thanks.

  Last but certainly not least, to my tall, dark, handsome husband James and my children, Amanda, Laura, Fiona and James, and son-in-law Michael Hearty. I couldn’t do it without you all.

  Chapter One

  Ellie Matthews’s heart was heavy as she joined the rush of early morning workers making their way across St Stephen’s Green. She ignored the clouds racing above in the blue sky and the rows of bright red and yellow tulips that lined a pathway through Dublin’s city-centre park, and she barely glanced at Jimmy Byrne, the park keeper, already busy with shovel and hoe planting out wallflowers. Crossing the old stone bridge, she paid no heed to the ducks dabbling on the lake below as she approached the main gate.

  Crowds of commuters stepped off the Luas city tram line and, joining them, she headed down Dawson Street. Cars hooted and the traffic roared as Ellie turned into South Anne Street – the street she had known all her life. She stopped and, rummaging in her handbag, pulled out the key of the shop, turned it firmly and slipped inside the door of number 61. Her heart was racing and she leaned against the wood to steady herself.

  It was almost six weeks since she had last crossed the threshold of the small milliner’s shop her mother owned, and in those six weeks her world had utterly changed. She tried to compose herself as she touched the counter, the display shelves and the hatstands.

  Forty days ago, Madeleine, her mother, had finally given in and agreed to be admitted to hospital. Once there, she had slipped away from the pain and fear of her terminal illness in a cloud of morphine and gentle acceptance that Ellie still struggled to understand.

  ‘I am not afraid,’ she had insisted, ‘so you must not be either.’

  The days had run together far too quickly as she watched her beautiful mother pass away to that other world she believed in so strongly.

  Her aunts, Yvette and Monique, and Monique’s husband, Uncle Jean-Luc, and her cousins had come over from France. They had gathered together, along with close friends and colleagues, for a funeral mass in Clarendon Street Church, her mother’s favourite city-centre place of prayer. Afterwards, with the simple grace and style she had exuded throughout her life, Madeleine Matthews had been laid to rest in a pretty plot in a graveyard in Wicklow. Ellie sighed, assaulted still by the pain of it.

  Two of them! There had always been the two of them against the world, mother and daughter, best friends, companions, much more than that. She had never imagined a life without her mother – and now, for the first time, she was alone. There had been no brothers and sist
ers, no huge extended family to call on, for Madeleine Matthews had raised her child on her own. Ellie knew her mother would have loved to have more children, a family of dark-haired, wide-eyed boys and girls, but it was not meant to be: a little less than three years after her whirlwind wedding to Philip Matthews, he had walked out of the tempestuous marriage and left her with a small daughter to raise.

  Ellie glanced round the shop, which was dusty and in need of a good hoover. The doorway was filthy, the windows needed a wash, and the back of the shop was filled with hatboxes and bags of sinamay, felt, satin and gauze. Unfinished pieces of work cluttered the surfaces, along with offcuts of petersham ribbon. She studied her mother’s huge cork noticeboard arrayed with photos, coloured drawings, samples of fabric and unusual patterns and designs, and wondered where to begin.

  The shop was shut but no matter, it should still be neat and clean, the way her mother liked it. Ellie slipped off her red beret and black coat and, with a piece of ribbon from the counter, she briskly tied back her shoulder-length black hair. It was high time she began to tidy up. Wrinkling her nose in disgust at the sour-smelling contents of the half-open milk carton on the shelf and a stale packet of biscuits, she began to bag some rubbish. Next she got the brush and mop and bucket and washed out the tiled front entrance to the shop, keeping her head down and ignoring passers-by. A small black cat appeared and tiptoed across the wet tiles, trying to slip between her legs and into the shop.

  ‘No, little cat!’

  Ellie shooed it away with her brush, before going back inside and turning her attention to the hoover. She had just started it when she heard a knocking on the shop door. Surely they could read the ‘Closed’ sign?

  There was a man standing at the door. Switching off the noisy hoover and smoothing her hair, she ran to see what he wanted.

  ‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ he began.

  ‘We’re shut,’ said Ellie firmly. ‘I’m only here to clean the place.’

  ‘Oh, then forgive me. I was looking for Madeleine.’

  ‘Madeleine’s not here,’ she explained slowly, trying to compose herself. ‘She passed away a few weeks ago.’

  ‘Oh . . . I’m very sorry. My condolences on her death,’ he apologized. ‘I knew she was ill but I didn’t realize the seriousness of it. I’ve been trying to get in touch with her.’

  Ellie could feel pinpricks of tears behind her eyes as this tall man in his expensive suit stared at her.

  ‘Madeleine was your . . .?’

  ‘My mother.’

  ‘There is a resemblance,’ he said gently. ‘And of course Madeleine told me about you. We’ve been in discussions regarding the sale contract for these premises. You probably know about it.’

  Ellie shook her head. Her mother had barely discussed the business over the past few months. She had been too ill, too weak to waste her energy on such material things.

  ‘Please, come inside. I’ll just put the catch on the door,’ Ellie said.

  ‘I should have introduced myself properly,’ he offered, his eyes serious. ‘My name is Neil Harrington – from Harrington Smith, the law firm.’

  ‘And I’m Ellie,’ she replied firmly, wondering if he knew that the business was now hers.

  ‘We represent Casey Coleman Holdings. They are one of Ireland’s largest property companies and have invested heavily in property on this street, which they intend redeveloping to provide shops and offices and accommodation. I had drafted a contract of sale on their behalf with your mother with regard to number 61.’

  ‘My mother was going to sell the shop!’ She couldn’t disguise her surprise. Ellie would never have imagined her mother willingly agreeing to the sale of the business she loved so much and had worked so hard to build up.

  ‘Yes, we had discussed the sale. She felt circumstances were changing. The street – well, it will be radically altered with this new plan, as I said, and I had already drawn up the contracts.’

  Contracts. Ellie couldn’t believe it. Why had her mother made no mention of any dealings with the serious dark-haired lawyer? Her mother had bought the shop thirty-one years ago and had worked here almost every day since. It had been far more than a business to Madeleine Matthews: it had been her life! She would never have considered selling it if she hadn’t fallen ill. But perhaps the man standing in front of her was right? Perhaps her mother had been more of a realist than she had imagined, planning for the future. A wave of emotion almost overwhelmed Ellie. She was adrift, like a cork bobbing on the ocean, not knowing where she was going to end up.

  ‘Miss Matthews?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Harrington. I knew there were plans for the redevelopment of the street, but I wasn’t aware that my mother had already considered selling the business.’

  ‘I suppose, under the circumstances,’ he said, looking at her with what appeared genuine concern, ‘she wanted to do what was best.’

  ‘The best!’

  Ellie swallowed hard. She felt hurt, threatened. Who could say what was best when her mother was dead and buried and she was the only beneficiary of her will? A simple document, the will included the shop, their second-floor apartment in a Georgian building in Hatch Street, and a small savings account that had already been depleted by the costs of the funeral.

  ‘I have no wish to intrude at a time of grief but I will leave you a copy of the contract to read.’ He withdrew a large brown envelope from the leather briefcase he had opened on the wooden counter. ‘If you want to discuss it with me or my partners over the next few days or weeks, whenever, we are at your disposal.’

  Ellie tried to control the tears welling in her eyes. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  ‘Bound to be an awful time,’ he murmured. ‘I should go. Here’s my card if you need me and once again my sympathy on your mother’s passing. She was a lovely woman.’

  Despite his stern expression he seemed kind. Glancing at his card, she could see he was a senior partner in the law firm. He was young – thirty-five or thirty-six – for such a position. She wondered if her mother had liked him, trusted him.

  Ellie walked him to the door, saying polite goodbyes, before watching his tall figure in the dark grey suit turn back up towards Dawson Street. She fingered the envelope. No, she’d read it later when she went home. For now she’d concentrate on getting the shop spick and span, even if it included tackling the massive spider web up in the corner near the top shelf. She’d better get used to doing such things, for now there was no one else.

  Hot and tired, she had an immense feeling of satisfaction after a few hours’ cleaning and tidying and washing down dusty paintwork. For once she had not dissolved with grief and she had actually lost track of time. Except for a break at lunch when she had slipped across the road to buy a sandwich and some milk, she had been permanently ensconced in the shop.

  Suddenly she realized that someone was knocking loudly on the shop door. Was it that Neil Harrington again? Perhaps he had forgotten something. She tried to tidy herself, then stepped forward and opened the door. It was a customer.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she apologized, ‘but we’re closed.’

  The determined middle-aged woman on the doorstep paid absolutely no heed and brushed past her to stand inside the shop.

  ‘Where’s Madeleine?’ she demanded. ‘I have been trying to contact her for the past three weeks. Twice I’ve been to Dublin but the shutters were down. I tried phoning, I—’

  ‘I’m very sorry,’ explained Ellie. ‘My mother passed away two weeks ago. She had been sick for a while.’

  The woman looked pale and for a second seemed to reel with the news.

  ‘Oh my God! I can’t believe it, poor Madeleine!’ she gushed, fiddling with her handbag. ‘I just can’t believe it. I was here with Madeleine only a couple of months ago ordering a hat.’

  ‘A hat?’

  ‘Yes, it’s for my daughter’s wedding.’

  ‘When is the wedding?’ asked Ellie.

  ‘It’s on Saturday,
’ wailed the woman. ‘That’s why I came in today to collect it.’

  Ellie felt an instant of panic. She hadn’t noticed any completed hat ready for collection either in the shop or in the small workroom out the back.

  ‘Sorry, I only came in today to sort a few things out and tidy up. Perhaps you could give me some details of the hat you ordered?’

  ‘It’s a sort of dusky pink, with one of those big wide brims with a slight upturn. Your mother had found some fabric in just the right colour to go with my outfit and she was trimming it with silk flowers and a swirl of ribbon.’

  Uneasy, Ellie was almost certain there wasn’t a hat of that description anywhere in the small shop. She’d check every box and bag to be sure.

  ‘Listen, Mrs . . .?’

  ‘The name is Maureen Cassidy.’

  ‘Well, Mrs Cassidy, would you like to sit down while I just check my mother’s workroom and storeroom?’

  ‘Oh, that would be lovely, dear. My feet are killing me from walking all round town.’

  Ellie settled her mother’s customer with a copy of Vogue before trawling through all the boxes stacked on the floor in the back room and making one more round of the hatstands. There was one hat crown in a rich, deep rose colour on a block. She had to find her mother’s hard-backed notebook to see the order, the rough design she had been contemplating. At last under a pile of tulle and organza she found it. There, in her mother’s fine writing, were the order and the rough sketch for Mrs Cassidy, with a completion date of two weeks ago. What was she going to tell the customer? She went back out front.

  ‘I always love reading these stylish magazines,’ said the woman, smiling up at her expectantly.

  ‘Mrs Cassidy, I did find your hat on one of the blocks in the back but I’m afraid it’s not finished.’

  ‘Not finished!’

  ‘I’m sorry but it must have been one of the last things my mother was working on before she went into the hospital.’

  ‘Not finished . . . but what am I to do? Lucy’s wedding is on Saturday. It’s all organized. I have my dress and a little jacket and the most darling shoes and a handbag, but I have to have a hat. I’m the mother of the bride . . . What am I going to do?’