The It Girls

by Karen Harper

  “My dearest Lucile, you should not have come, but I shall be eternally glad you did. I have missed you terribly.”

  “And I have worried over you.”

  “But you are still drawing your beautiful clothing, aren’t you?”

  “Thank you for that. For saying they are beautiful and knowing how important that is to me.”

  “You will someday lift the spirits of ladies more than I have done their health.”

  “No one has bothered you—tried to hurt you? Lurking Germans or others?”

  “Not since the ransacking of my country place. As if then I would go on a speaking tour or some such with this shortness of breath, my chest pain and weakness.”

  As if to accent that, he straightened and breathed deeply and slowly, almost wheezing. His hand fluttered to his chest as if to hide the pain there. She started to speak, but he went on, “Lucile, I’ve seen highs and lows, and I hope you will always have the highs. Is Nellie still scandalized over us?”

  “I believe she knows a good and great man when she sees one. It seems she’s been a better judge of men’s character than I was, except for you. I have decided to risk everything and file for a divorce, though I’ve agonized over it so long. I told Mother and Lucy that months ago, but I’ve finally ‘screwed my courage to the sticking point,’ as Nellie read me from a Shakespeare tragedy lately, and I’ve had enough of tragedy in my life.”

  “I admire your courage. You’ve told me before you have thought this out, and I pray that you have.”

  “Yes, well, I can only pray it won’t ruin my hopes to attract some buyers who will model my fashions far and wide. But what can I do to help you? Please let me see you again, call on you to lift your spirits.”

  “You already have. But there is one thing. Because of my iron back brace I’ve hidden from most people except you—of lovely necessity—I always wanted you to sit on my lap and never told you that. I won’t let this scruffy beard scratch your fair skin, I promise.”

  She drew her skirts closer so she could get them into his armed chair. His embrace encircled her. She lay her head on his shoulder then rubbed her cheek across his stubble, no matter what he’d said. He pulled her tighter and kissed her gently, then desperately. She felt so large in his arms, all skirts and strong body while his felt bony and thin.

  Too soon, with tears in his eyes, he helped her up and made her leave. They did not say good-bye, but she knew it was exactly, painfully, that.

  CHAPTER Eight

  Lucy drooped about the house the next day. She didn’t even go out with Mother, Esme, and Simpson to the park to fly a kite, citing her upset stomach. Thank heavens, not one of them fussed or insisted she come with them, but maybe they knew she’d pull their spirits down. She sat sullen, staring at her sketches of tea gowns, which everyone called teagies. The garments had a rather naughty reputation—they were loose fitting and worn without a corset beneath so, it was rumored, that they could come up or off easily if one’s lover dropped by under the excuse of coming for tea.

  Tea and me, Lucy thought and heaved a sob. She had lost the only man she had truly cared for—after her girlhood infatuation with Cecil—and was about to divorce the one she’d married and had not cared a straw for. She tried to stem the tears, but they flowed anyway.

  She heard the maid go to the front door, though she had not heard the bell. Oh, Nellie’s voice. Now she’d have to hear all about the estate in Devon, the people, what fun, and she couldn’t bear it, at least right now. She would beat a retreat upstairs, say she had a headache, just hide in bed and picture poor Morell in his and recall the several times they had shared a bed and—

  Before Lucy could disappear, Nellie exploded into the room with, “You won’t believe this!” She hadn’t even removed her hat, gloves, or cloak. “I’ve found someone to wear your clothes among the uppers, and she loves your designs. She’s a real up-and-comer, pretty, too. She’ll make a better walking, talking mannequin than I ever did!”

  “Oh! Oh, tell me all!” Lucy cried and broke into full-fledged tears. “I needed some good news, and you have brought it.”

  “Then just you remember our agreement,” Nellie told her, coming over to seize Lucy’s shoulders and give her a little shake. “If I fetch you an important customer, you will personally purchase one hundred copies of my first novel, ha!” she said with a wink. “That is, as soon as it’s written and a publisher goes all moony over it. I just hope I have as much luck with the book as I’m having right now with admirers. I had four of them arguing over me, and they tussled in a fountain and everyone heard about it—and I might have met the man of my dreams, I mean I think I have. Prince Charming, right out of the blue.”

  “Nothing is right out of the blue,” Lucy said as she swiped at her tears, then grasped Nellie’s wrists. “You have been making your way and I, too, despite setbacks we’ve suffered. Only good things are yet to come, as soon as I rid myself of my husband and you find one, and—and we will go on. Perhaps Lillie Langtry was right about our glorious futures. You’ve made my day, and I owe you a great deal! Now tell me all.”

  As they bent over the cut fabric pieces on the dining room table, Lucy told Mother, “You know, I told Mrs. Brand that I would design yet another tea gown to fit her personality. She was most pleased, not only with that but with the compliments that came her way when she wore the first one. I am thrilled with new orders. And I came up with the most marvelous idea. I think I shall name each of my gowns specifically. They’ll be either gowns of personality or gowns of emotion, depending on the wearer. I shall tell Mrs. Brand this one is named Winter Wonder, since we’re in the depths of November.”

  “Mm,” Mother said, then took away the pins she was holding in her mouth. “That will go over with flying colors, I’m sure, but you’d best concentrate that mind of yours on sewing, not promoting. If word gets round about your divorce, new orders may dry up.”

  Lucy shook out the accordion panels of the daffodil-hued skirt she’d worked hard on, and the material danced, just the way she’d hoped it would. “Mother, Nellie and I have both vowed to enlarge our passions—onward and upward is our motto. Young women in this modern age must have something to hope for and strive for. She is working to somehow make Clayton propose to her when he’s obviously so smitten but hesitant.”

  “As, I dare say, any bachelor in his midthirties might be. I surely don’t blame our Nellie.”

  “And I am working to promote myself as a designer as Lucile Ltd., not Mrs. James Wallace. I thank you and Nellie for pitching in here when you can, but I have big dreams and that does not include my sewing staff being my mother and sister.”

  “Oh, I hear her voice. Here she is now,” Mother said, popping up. “After a ride with Clayton on Rotten Row, I hope she has some news he’s asked for her hand.”

  “And the rest of her.”

  “Lucy! He’s evidently wealthy enough that he may be the answer to all our dreams.” She called out, “Nellie, dear, we’re in here!”

  Nellie rushed in, pink cheeked and out of breath. “I might not like horses, but I did fine with Clayton and in your smashing wool riding habit, Lucy. At least I didn’t have to dodge other mounts, as there was hardly anyone else on the path today, so we and his man, Stephens, had it all to ourselves.”

  “Bully for you!” Lucy said. “You’ve hated horses ever since that carriage horse ran away with you.”

  “Yes, but now Clayton’s run away with my heart. Oh, he still didn’t propose exactly, but I found out so much more about him.”

  “I liked him from the first,” Mother said, sitting back down while Nellie sank into a chair across the cluttered table and Lucy kept sewing. “Especially when I heard there are three houses on his Essex estate,” she said with a sigh. “I’d love to see the large Georgian house there—what’s its name again?”

  “Durrington House,” Nellie said. “Then there is Sheering Hall, a three-hundred-year-old farmhouse, quite redone, he says, and then a small h
ouse called Lamberts. He’s a country squire at heart, stocking his fields with pheasants for shoots and—you won’t believe the irony of this—breeding a herd of Jersey cows. He mixes well with aristocrats, and he’s so perfect for me, and would Grandmama be so proud! Oh, by the by, he’s let out Durrington House, because he’s been traveling so much, but I’m sure it’s where we would live if he’d just take the step to propose.”

  “Well,” Lucy said, “before he sets out again, I hope he takes that very step.”

  “He’s mentioned a future trip, even one to Brighton, which I am praying could be for our honeymoon. He said he would love to see me swimming with my long hair all loose. Mother, he is a man of substance, and I believe he cares for me. He’s spoken of wanting children, an heir and a spare—so doesn’t that sound almost royal?”

  Lucy stood and stretched her back. “Almost is not good enough, Miss Elinor Sutherland,” she told her. “If you want to force his hand, I will pay for you and Mother to go away for a while to see if your world traveler will follow. Will absence make the heart grow fonder or will it be out of sight, out of mind? My second client of note, Mrs. Panmure Gordon, was raving about Monte Carlo, so how about a visit there?”

  Nellie jumped up and bounced like a child despite the fact she was a twenty-seven-year-old old maid. “Oh, Lucy, that might be just the ticket. To show him we can travel too, that we have some money.”

  “Which,” Mother added, “we almost don’t. Oh, I pray he’d make a good marriage settlement on you.”

  Lucy put in with a smile, “I can assure you I know a designer who could save us a fortune on the bridal gown and bridesmaids, child bridesmaids, too, including Esme.”

  “I’ll chance leaving him for a while!” Nellie declared. “I’ll be as bold as you have been launching this fashion business. I shall tell him Mother and I are off to Monte Carlo and say I hope he doesn’t miss me—and then pray he does.”

  “Oh dear,” Nellie said looking up from reading Lucy’s letter to them. The bright Mediterranean winter sun streaming in their window illumined the black handwriting set boldly against the stark white page with LUCILE LTD. embossed at the top. “Dr. Mackenzie died of heart failure on February third. That’s all she says. What a year 1892 has been so far! I know she’s grieving, but I’ll bet she can’t even put her feelings into words. I may be the writer in the family, but I’ve never seen Lucy at a loss for that. Even I am grieved for his loss to his patients and profession—to Lucy too.”

  Mother took her handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed at her eyes.

  “He was a brilliant man,” she said. “Brilliant to care deeply for Lucy, also just when she felt deserted and—and so alone.”

  “Best call her Lucile now, Mother. The rest of this,” she said as she skimmed the letter, “is about orders pouring in, which is keeping her up all night. She’s even paying Bradford to put in hems. And oh—oh, here at the bottom in a sort of postscript! She says Clayton called on her at the house to be certain of our address here, and he’s coming to Monte Carlo! Now, why didn’t she put that at the top with stars all around it? Oh, heavens, that means—I’m counting from the date she wrote this—he could be here today! I need to change my gown—you too. Wouldn’t it be just like an impetuous suitor to drop right in? We can hardly go stroll on the promenade now, but we don’t want to seem to be sitting here, waiting for him!”

  Mother reached over to take her hands and pulled her back into her seat. “My dearest, you do love him, don’t you? You are sure he is the one? I admit he sounds perfect too. But, after Mr. Kennedy and James Wallace, I have seen there can be a steep price we women pay for marriage. I’m not leery but—but careful. Even Clayton seems to be holding something back sometimes, to look down his nose at things . . .”

  “But don’t you see? That’s because he is of a superior type. It’s as if he stepped from the pages of Le Morte de Arthur or The Romance of the Rose!”

  “Your and Lucy’s happiness, little Esme’s, too, that’s what I live for. I have had a dear love of my own to cherish always in my heart.”

  “Father was God’s gift to you and Clayton will be to me—just wait and see. He has that certain thing Lucy and I like to think of as ‘It.’”

  “It? It what?”

  “A special inward charm that is like a bubble all around one’s presence. A magnetic field of sorts. Charisma. A woman can have ‘It’ too, just like Lillie Langtry did. I’ll write a story about it someday, just wait and see.”

  “Your mother seems overly interested in the seagulls,” Clayton told Nellie with a glance behind them as they strolled the seaside promenade late the next morning. Nellie had been in such a state she hadn’t slept last night and was on edge now.

  “She’s just giving us some privacy,” she told him and squeezed his arm linked in hers against her ribs. “She knows I’m happy to see you and to have you all to myself.”

  “My dream with you, exactly. I long to have you off alone, no Mother, no Lucy, no chaperones. I yearn to see you swimming with your white skin just below the surface and your long, sunset hair streaming free. Nellie—Elinor—if you will have me, I would like to—love and long to—marry you. If you agree, I want to go back inside to the hotel lobby, just the two of us, because I’ve brought you a special gift if you will just agree—why are you crying?”

  “I’m just so happy.”

  “Then smile. Tell me what you think—and feel.”

  Her feelings! This man cared about her emotions as well as her thoughts.

  “That I love you. Yes, yes!” she blurted and cried the more.

  “Of course I’d make a good marriage settlement for your mother,” he said in a rush. “One way or the other, maybe help Lucile get her ladies’ shop out of the Davies Street house. I know someone who would be a good financial adviser for that as juggling money and avoiding debt is not my bailiwick. Well?”

  “Well, I always wanted to wed a man who had a herd of Jersey cows,” she blurted out, though she knew she was getting giddy. “Let me tell Mother we’re going back inside—and why.”

  “Then tell her,” he said, wiping at Nellie’s eyes with a handkerchief he’d pulled from his frock coat, “I bought you a large diamond ring from Cartier, and I’m sure you Sutherland women will like it—and those fine French relatives you told me about will approve too.”

  Despite the propriety on the promenade and Mother watching from behind, Nellie hugged Clayton. “Let’s both tell her,” she said. “I can wait for the ring if I have you.”

  Together, they turned back toward Mother. Nellie absolutely knew Clayton had solved all her problems and that from now on, everything would be perfectly wonderful.

  At age twenty-seven on April 27, 1892, Miss Nellie Sutherland became Mrs. Elinor Glyn at St. George’s Church, Hanover Square, in London. Lucy said she looked like a medieval princess, and she did, down to the elaborate headdress. A stunning diamond tiara—a gift from Clayton—held in place a veil of Brussels lace. She felt like Shakespeare’s Fairy Queen and set a new trend since she was the first bride to wear a tiara instead of a wreath of orange blossoms.

  Their French relatives attended, awed by the fact that a man of money and some position would marry a girl without a dowry. Nevertheless, their cousin Auguste gave the bride away. Esme and the two other child bridesmaids had touches of yellow in their dresses, also a break in tradition for English weddings, especially since yellow in a wedding used to mean “Ashamed of her fellow,” which Elinor was not. Besides, Lucy was not about to let silly superstitions keep her from using lovely colors.

  “Well, Clayton’s indirectly given me a lovely gift too—customers,” Lucy said to Mother and Nellie at the reception, after several guests had asked for that very yellow hue in gowns. “And he gave me the name of someone who might be willing to advise me on finances so I can hire a small staff and eventually move my endeavor out of the house, someone named, ah—here is his calling card, Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon, fifth Baronet, no less!
”

  Mother looked impressed, but Nellie—that is, Mrs. Elinor Glyn—wasn’t listening, and why should she? Her dreams had come true, her ship had come in. Lucy—no, she was Lucile now—had to smile at that.

  After all, her own ship had come in with a new batch of orders just now. She was going to design beautiful personality dresses and gowns of emotion, frocks and teagies—even underthings, so a British bride wouldn’t have to go to Paris for a trousseau of intimate items. She would make her name and her fortune, too. Yes, after being abandoned by one man and losing another to death, she would be married only to her passion for design from now on.

  “Clayton, what will everyone think that you rented and closed two entire swimming pools for two entire days here at Brighton?” Elinor asked as she sat on the side of the pool and loosed her long hair for him.

  “They will think I am the most fortunate man in the universe,” he told her.

  Clayton had insisted they both wear robes with nothing under them and then discard even those for a swim together. Their wedding night had been entirely in the dark before they left for this seaside town, but with Clayton’s plans they could hardly go swimming in the sea. It was his fantasy—his romance, as she thought of it—that she should be his mermaid and seduce him and become his love. Yes, that was the tale she would spin from this, only it was real.

  The last long pin that held up her tresses clacked to the tile floor, and the bounty of her hair tumbled loose clear to her knees.

  Clayton leaned closer on the wooden bench and ran his hands through her heavy hair she hadn’t had cut for years. “In certain Islamic cultures, you know,” his voice whispered in her ear, “a women’s hair is completely hidden except from her mate in their intimate times.”