She had eschewed her opulent gowns and platter-size chapeaux for the weekend, lounging about in embroidered silk robes with wide sleeves and diamond-studded clasps, her hair rippling down her back. She had hair like a Madonna, so long and full she drifted about in its cloud. But no matter how casual her attire (or casual for her; to me, she still appeared if she was dressed for a gala), I noticed she never removed her corset.
When I finally got up the nerve to ask her if it hurt to be encased in whalebone all day, she replied, “It’s an exercise in torture, but we must endure, for it has its rewards. Don’t tell anyone, but I’m not as young as I used to be, ma chère, and illusion must be maintained.” She regarded me pensively. “Do you never wear a corset?”
Of course I had, though as little as possible, and not since my departure from singing in cafés. I shook my head. “I do not like them,” I said, and again I thought she would see right through me to the girl who had never been anywhere and didn’t know how to dress.
She sighed. “Such is the resiliency of youth. You’re practically invisible when you turn to the side. So flat and lean—I envy you. Though a corset would give a lift to your bosom, and men like Balsan—well, they prefer women with a few curves.”
Was that my defect, my lack of curves?
Then, unexpectedly, she asked to see my hats. I had been dreading the moment, fearing that with her sophistication, she would find my creations poor substitutes. But I took her upstairs to my parlor, where (though I’d been keeping her at bay) I’d spent hours arranging my hats so they’d appear in the best light. My chest knotted as she wafted to the rows on the table by the window. She didn’t speak, drifting her fingers over the hats without touching them. I had no idea what she thought. I was about to blurt out that I only made hats to stay busy and didn’t expect anyone to like them, when she cast a glance over her shoulder. “May I try one?”
She had paused by my most ornate creation, a rounded hat with an upturned scoop, black silk camellias, and black feathers sewn around its brim. It was my least favorite. I hadn’t found its perfecting touch, yet when she took it up and pivoted to the mirror, I suddenly realized it was ideal for her. Émilienne was not like me; she wasn’t small boned. Though not fat, she was tall and plump, her body molded into that unnatural hourglass shape accentuated by her corset, a fleshy thrust of breast and a wasp waist rounding into full hips. The hat would emphasize her statuesque figure without overwhelming her. Placing the hat on her head, she tilted it to one side. A tiny frown puckered her brow.
I hastened to her, righting the hat so it sat directly on her brow and the scoop curled upward. “It’s meant to be worn like this?” she asked, uncertain.
I nodded. “It’s supposed to frame your features.”
“But then, one’s hairstyle must . . . ?”
“Be simple. It won’t sit right if the hair is piled too high.”
“No horsehair frames to elevate one’s chignon?” She met my eyes in the mirror. “That would indeed be revolutionary. We spend hours each day having our hair styled. If we could forgo the effort, imagine what else we could do with our time?”
I smiled. The hat did suit her, but only in my opinion. As she turned to look at the others, I ventured to add, “A hat is an accessory; it should enhance our face and our clothes. I don’t think walking around with a platter on our heads is either comfortable or attractive.”
“I see. And you make these hats . . . how?”
“With basic forms. I decorate them myself, but the forms are already made.”
“Yet none are traditional bonnets and you employ no other adornments, just these few feathers and a touch of colored cloth here or there. Again, revolutionary . . .” She returned to her reflection. After several moments, she said softly, “Why, ma chère, your hats are extraordinary. So unusual yet also refined, like you. Have you considered selling them?”
I contemplated lying to her, but instead heard myself say, “I tried when I was in Moulins. I once decorated a hat that a woman in Vichy found charming, but no one else expressed interest. Now, I mostly do it for me. I . . . I enjoy it.”
“Evidently. And these intriguing outfits you wear, do you make them, too? You do? How extraordinary.”
It was the second time she had said “extraordinary.” It made me glow inside.
“You know, there’s an excellent haberdashery in Paris on rue Lafayette; they sell many different types of these forms. I could bring some with me on my next visit, if you’d like?”
I could have kissed her. “I would, very much. In Compiègne, there’s not much variety.”
“Well, one cannot compare Compiègne to Paris. What would Balsan say?” Émilienne paused, considering. “It would be like comparing a donkey to a Thoroughbred.” Laughing, she removed the hat. As I reached to take it from her, she said, “How much?”
I froze. I had no idea what a finished hat cost these days. “Consider it a gift,” I said.
She clucked her tongue. “Ma chère, you must name a price. Nothing a woman has should ever be given away for free.”
“Ten francs,” I blurted out. It seemed an inordinate amount, but she merely arched her brow. “Is that all? Sold. I’ll wear it the next time I go for tea in the Tuileries. The others ladies will seethe with envy and demand to know where I purchased such a marvelous chapeau.”
As I turned trembling to the table, wondering how to wrap up the hat for her, she set a hand on my shoulder, her clean scent tinged with attar of roses permeating my being.
She murmured, “I believe you’re destined for great success, Coco Chanel. And I’m going to help you achieve it.”
XIII
I missed Émilienne when she left, my hat on her head, waving gaily and promising to return. I stood forlorn at the château entrance with Balsan’s hunting hounds sniffing at my feet, watching her carriage drive away to the train station.
I’d heard such promises before. As I turned to trudge into the house, Balsan said, “There’s no reason to look so glum. Émilienne charms everyone but she likes very few. If she said she’s coming back to see you, she will.”
He didn’t understand my dejection, my haunting conviction that everyone was destined to leave me, one way or another. I couldn’t believe Émilienne would come back, because if she didn’t, it would crush me. I plunged into my work, walking around with a scowl as the scent of her faded from everything she had touched. Balsan took note of my mood. He kept away from my bed, busy with his horses, until I could not abide myself anymore and emerged one morning to stalk up to him as he spoke with his grooms.
“I want to learn to ride today,” I announced.
He regarded me. “Like that?”
I bristled at once, my nerves rubbed by his sardonic air, by the complacency he seemed to exude at all times, though not long ago I had admired it. “Yes. Like this. Is there a problem?”
He passed his gaze over me. I wore a short jacket over a simple blouse, a skirt, and boots, my wide boater placed squarely on my head.
“You’ll have to learn sidesaddle,” he said.
“Fine.” I strode into the stables as he instructed a groom to prepare the mare. Getting onto the beast proved more difficult than I had thought. Though I used the mounting block that Balsan set before me, my skirt wasn’t wide enough to hike as high as I needed it to go without exposing my thighs. Once I settled precariously upon the saddle and had been shown how to set my foot in the stirrup, using my other leg for balance, I felt utterly ridiculous.
“Hold fast to the reins but not so tight that you cut her mouth,” Balsan told me. “We’ll go slowly at first.”
I wanted to tell him I didn’t need coddling, but as the mare lurched forward, following Balsan astride his prize gelding, I swayed like a sack of flour. I had never felt so ungainly or imperiled in my life. The ground seemed miles below me. It didn’t help that as I grappled with the reins, the mare snorted and swiveled her great head to try to nip me.
We rode around the new
ly fenced-in meadow. It was hardly more than a short excursion but by the time we returned to the stables, I was soaked in sweat, chafed about my buttocks, and thoroughly disgusted with myself.
“There. That wasn’t so bad,” Balsan said as he helped me to dismount, no doubt relieved that I had shown some initiative and not spent another day indoors moping and filling my room to the rafters with more hats. “Tomorrow, you’ll do better.”
With a glare, I marched back into the château. I certainly would. I would not accept anything less. But not like this. If I was going to ride, I must have the use of both my legs, not be relegated to perching atop the mare like a figurine on a cake.
Rummaging through his closet in his room—where I almost never ventured—I searched his attire for something suitable I could use to make a riding outfit. He had more clothes than anyone else I had known, hundreds of jackets and waistcoats, trousers and shirts, though he was not vain. Rather, his limitless wealth allowed him to acquire as he pleased, and most of what he bought he never wore. Once I located a slightly frayed pair of his jodhpurs, I returned to my room and went to work. It took the rest of the day and most of the night, but when I arrived at the stables the next morning he took one look at me and laughed, “Coco, you really go too far!”
I ignored his mirth and the wide-eyed stares of his hired help. With my new jodhpurs fitted to my figure and a wide-brimmed felt hat, I clambered onto the mare with ease. Sitting astride, I took up the reins and said to a still-grinning Balsan, “Now, I’ll do better.”
And so I did. I spent the next weeks riding every day, until the improvised jodhpurs began to wear in the seat and I could gallop without my heart in my throat. When Balsan informed me that he planned another of his gatherings for the upcoming weekend, it bolstered my confidence. I went to Compiègne where he kept a tailor on account, to order two riding ensembles made for me in tweed and linen.
The tailor sniffed. “Mademoiselle, ladies do not wear trousers.”
“They’re not trousers,” I said. “They’re riding breeches. And this lady will wear them.” I punctuated my tone with finality. By now, everyone connected to Balsan knew he had a maîtresse in his household. Even Adrienne, who wrote on occasion to provide the latest news on her ongoing battle to marry Nexon, had sent a letter indicating that Louise and unnamed others in our family were “troubled” by my behavior, going to live with a man and do—well, precisely what Adrienne did, only without the promise of marriage. I ignored her concern. What I did was my own affair. It always had been, since I was a child. Family wasn’t going to see to my future, or at least not any future I’d consider, but in time Balsan might.
Nevertheless, the monotony of Royallieu started to wear on me. It was ironic after the deprivations I had endured that I couldn’t find it in myself to revel in a luxury most girls would have killed to possess. The freedom I envisioned seemed as out of reach as it had during those dreary days of singing for my supper. Indeed, though I ate like a queen, slept in feathery comfort, and worked for my own delight, invisible tethers still bound me. I was beholden to someone else for the very food on my plate and I began to resent it. My discontent was a vague shadow that crept upon me at night, as I stood swathed in smoke from my cigarettes, my ashtray overflowing and floor and worktable littered in ribbon and cloth. The black square of the window reflected the same blackness in my heart.
What else did I want? How much more could I ask for? I had no answer. There was no soul-lightening certainty. All I knew was that I couldn’t be Balsan’s mistress forever. I didn’t love him in the way I should. In time, Balsan would tire of me. He would realize I felt only friendship for him and seek a more enthusiastic companion. Though he had given no indication that he wearied of my company or expected more than I could give, he was still a man and not unappealing. He’d had Émilienne for a lover and, while rare, she was not unique. Others like her would leap at the opportunity to supplant me, and in truth, though I feared being sent away to survive on my own, I would not miss his desultory lovemaking or this guilty feeling that I stole something from him by taking what he offered and not reciprocating in any discernible manner.
Riding therefore became my obsession. Not a passion, for I preferred to keep my feet on the ground, but because it provided an outlet for my restlessness, another unlikely achievement that might serve me later, though I couldn’t see how.
It would be another two years before I found my answer. When it arrived, it was more sudden and unexpected than anything that had come before.
ÉMILIENNE ARRIVED THAT WEEKEND, radiating warmth and accompanied by a coterie of her actress-courtesan friends, a hive of intrepid beauties—none of whom, to my surprise, was here to test their claws or wrench Balsan from my tepid embrace.
They wanted to buy my hats.
As they crowded into my workroom to coo over my offerings, Émilienne leaned to me and murmured, “My dear, are you sure you are all right? You look thinner than the last time I was here. You’re not going consumptive, are you?”
I averted my gaze, mumbling, “I’m fine,” and went to attend to her friends, who had seen Émilienne in my hat in the Tuileries and virtually “mobbed her,” as she put it, for an invitation to visit this eccentric haberdasher she had been hiding from them. That I was a woman only made them gasp and covet my creations more.
“Imagine,” one declared, flouncing about with one of my feathered hats on her head, “what Monsieur Worth will say when he hears that we’re not wearing his hats. Mon Dieu, the scandal! It’ll be the talk of every salon in Paris.”
Scandal, I discovered, was the bait that kept the courtesans’ admirers in constant thrall, an aphrodisiac as powerful as oysters, Émilienne assured me, for what man with blood in his veins did not yearn for the forbidden, along with the sublime?
“I wouldn’t know,” I said. We reclined on the settee in my room, which she cushioned with her embroidered mantilla and a plethora of pillows. Her friends had gone out to stroll the gardens with the men; Émilienne arrived in my room with her hair unbound to declare that we must have this afternoon to ourselves.
Now, she surveyed me with her catlike eyes. “You wouldn’t know? My dear, you seem positively wretched these days. Are you not happy that I brought my friends to buy your wares?” She motioned with her kimono-draped arm to my empty worktable, where a lone plain black square hat, one of my favorites, remained. On the floor were piled boxes from the haberdashery on rue Lafayette, containing the basic forms she had bought me. “Look, they’ve cleared out your stock. Now you’ve a fresh batch, so you can make new hats and I can bring another horde to buy them the next time I visit. Before you know it, your name will be on everyone’s lips.”
“Yes, of course I’m happy,” I said with a strained smile. “It’s only that . . .” I wasn’t sure if I should broach the fog of discontent, which had settled upon me, the sense that I drifted in a world where I had no purpose or any chance for true happiness.
She immediately inclined to me. “Oh, no, ma chère. Tell me it is not so.”
“What?” I stared at her, bewildered. “What is not so?”
She sighed. “I knew it: this strange melancholy and lack of appetite, the thinness and pallor. My dear, you are enceinte.”
It took a moment for me to grasp her meaning. When I did, I was astonished. “You think I’m pregnant? Oh, no, Émilienne. I assure you, I am not.”
“No?” She frowned. “Is it not possible?”
I paused. “Yes,” I said at length, for I saw no reason to lie. She knew who Balsan and I were to each other. “I suppose it is. But I am not.” The manner in which I spoke must have betrayed more than I intended, for she became contemplative in a way I had not seen before. Then she reclined, her kimono falling open to reveal her curvaceous body in a cream silk negligee, today without her corset. “I see.”
“You do?” As I did not, I was curious to hear what she had divined.
“Have you considered instructing him, perhaps?” she aske
d, still in that intimate tone. “Men can be trained. They learn rather readily, in fact, if you take the time to show them. With patience and persistence, I have found they can accommodate our needs quite satisfactorily when given the chance.”
She was not talking about financial needs, that much I understood. But I was so dumbfounded by the unexpected turn in our conversation, I couldn’t say a word.
“He performed well enough for me,” she added, with an arch of her plucked eyebrow. “Maybe not the best I’ve had, but certainly not the worst.” She grimaced. “I don’t keep those who refuse to accommodate, not with so many others waiting at the door.”
I finally found my voice. “You think I should train Balsan? Like a dog?”
“Why, yes. He does not please you. You must do something to change his perspective. Not every woman is the same. He might not know that, being a man, but we do. How else is he to learn if you do not teach him?”
My laughter escaped me in an incredulous burst. “Show him? I hardly know myself!” and as soon as I spoke, I realized I had just stepped into my own unwitting snare.
Her tongue moistened her lips. “You have never . . . ?” When I failed to respond, though this time I knew perfectly well what she implied, she added, “Experienced pleasure in bed?”
“I do like to sleep,” I said faintly. I wasn’t about to admit to my furtive explorations with my fingers, the quick quiver and gasp that constituted the sum total of my pleasure in bed.
“Oh, my dear, you are indeed an innocent. What a delight. It is very rare among our kind. Do you think what he does, or does not do, is all there is?”
“I haven’t thought of it much at all,” I lied. “Though I must say, it was . . .”
“Disappointing?” She reached out to caress my arm. I shivered, though I did not find her touch unpleasant. “It often is,” she said, “the first time. We mustn’t let such disappointment dissuade us. We are not wives, after all; they are not our husbands. We have other choices.”
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