Secrets of a Charmed Life

Emmy’s bride sketches are both a symbol of Emmy’s dream of becoming a dressmaker and owning her own bridal shop and a motif driving The Conflict Between Personal Ambition and Responsibility. They give her hope that she will someday open her boutique, and this pushes her to ask Mrs. Crofton for a job. When Mrs. Crofton gives her the opportunity to show her skills and promise as a fashion designer, Emmy’s bride sketches become even more important. This pits her against her mother, who believes that her dream is unrealistic, and that she must focus on taking care of Julia amid the war. Though she loves Julia, Emmy resents the responsibility that their mother puts on her for Julia’s care. She wants to assert her independence and holds onto her sketches all throughout her evacuation to Gloucestershire. For these reasons, she only allows Julia to look at the bride sketches when she is around. When Julia hides the sketches and replaces them with her book of fairy tales, she hopes, like the sketches, that Emmy will replace her dreams to leave and become a dressmaker’s apprentice with a renewed connection with her younger sister.

After Emmy and Julia are separated, Emmy gives up her dream of being a dressmaker and boutique owner to focus on finding Julia. In her crushing guilt and bitter resignation that she will likely never find her, Emmy gives up completely on her dream and even considers burning her sketches if she finds them. Instead, she begins painting, letting the bride sketches and her old dreams go.

In her journal entries, Julia reveals that she feels immense guilt for switching Emmy’s bride sketches and, like her sister, she feels like she does not deserve to be happy. She soon believes that if she can find Charlotte’s house and the bride sketches that she can atone for her actions. The bride sketches symbolize Julia’s desire to make things right with her sister and reunite with her. This leads her and Simon to go on a two-month search for the house. When she finds it and Gwen finds the sketches, Julia feels she can finally forgive herself. She uses one of Emmy’s dress designs in her wedding and tries to get others approved and sewn to accomplish Emmy’s dream. When she gets one of the bride sketches made into a real dress and fits it for her wedding, she finds peace and feels her sister’s presence for the first time in over 18 years.