Guilty Lillie has always claimed she is innocent, but her change in circumstances sees her clearing her rooms of all gimcracks, bibelots, geegaws, gauds and tchotchkes.
Her beginnings
Lillie was born into illegitimacy as a result of an indiscretion by Lord Fontainbleu and an Irish chamber maid in his employ, Lillian Murphy, who was over-powered by his status and her perceived duty to him. Lady Fontainbleu, already trapped in a loveless arranged marriage, abhorred this final insult and never shared his chamber again.
The Fontainbleu housekeeper, with wisdom, kindness and an empathy for her fellow women foresaw Lillian’s grim future in abject poverty should she keep the child. She also felt the grief of Lady Fontainbleu’s barren life should she remain childless and thus arranged a discreet confinement period for Lillian and the ultimate adoption of the baby by Lord and Lady Fontainbleu, to become the young Lady Elizabeth Fontainbleu.
Lillie's life as a young Lady
Lillie's father was all but absent throughout her childhood and her years as a young lady as he caroused his way around the estates of the upper classes. However, Lady Elizabeth, or Lillie to those familiar, thrived in the loving surroundings of her adoring adoptive mother, her ever respected Governess and the chamber maid, whose loyalty and affection she never quite understood until on her death bed, Lady Fontainbleu revealed to Lillie the true circumstances of her birth.
The Mid-Years
Lillie maintained the Fontainbleu estate and, ignoring any suspicions she may have aroused, elevated her mother to the position of Lady’s Companion. She continued to live without want until her father, now in a downward social spiral of debt and drink, died, leaving what little was left of the estate to her estranged cousin Laurence de Sevres. Now faced with certain poverty and expulsion from the only life and society she had ever known, she was faced with only one option – to depart Fontainbleu with her mother Lillian and as many items of value as she could carry.
Lillie and Lillian’s Parlour
The two ladies decided to return to Lillian’s birthplace of Dublin and began to operate a “teinturier” from their scullery. This business provided a service to the bereaved, in particular to widows, whereby gowns and other clothes were dyed black in order that the widows could observe the customary year of mourning. Shortly after commencing this business, clients began to make requests for mourning jewellery using a lock of hair or some similar relic of the deceased. Lillie demonstrated a natural ability for the craftsmanship and skill required to create objects not only of a deeply personal nature but also of true beauty.
Lillie was well respected for the sensitivity and empathy with which she managed the business and was often paid not only with money but with objects and curios of those deceased which led to her develop a most wonderful collection from medicine to the macabre, from buttons to body parts, from dolls houses to décor, from opera to opticians, from teeth to teaching.
Guilty Lillie Today
Lillian lived to be 97 and died peacefully in her sleep having lived her final years in a close and loving relationship with her adored daughter. Lillie was deeply impacted by her mother’s death and continues to mourn to this day. Her own clothes, which she dyed black on the day of Lillian’s demise to create her own set of “widow’s weeds” were the final ones to be dyed in their teinturier as she felt unable to continue the business in Lillian’s absence.
She retaines her interest in objets bizarre and continues to produce one-off pieces of jewellery today.
