"I h-have already asked s-some models to come here," the vendeuse stammered. "They are waiting outside for you to see them."
"I'll see them now. But let them change into something of ours first. It's the way they look in Duval clothes that counts."
Madame Lelong scurried out and Henri sighed heavily. As he did so, Dina came in, a delicate figurine in rose pink.
"I had to see you," she exclaimed. "I was talking to Paul and he told me about the disaster. If only there was something I could do "
"Do not worry, cherie. Everything is under control." He drew Dina's hand to his lips, then led her to a gilt chair. "Sit next to me while I choose another model."
He nodded to Madame Lelong who was hovering by the door, and the smile on his lips became transfixed as a tall, statuesque girl with silver white hair glided into the room.
Unlike most models she was extremely curvaceous, yet was so perfectly proportioned she gave the impression of being slimmer than she was. Her silver white hair looked natural and Alix decided the girl was Scandinavian, which could also account for the pale skin and light gray eyes.
There was something about her Alix disliked. It had nothing to do with the way she displayed one of Henri's embroidered creations, for she was, without question, superb at her job, managing to invest the somewhat vulgar dress with an insolent grace.
Three more girls followed her but it was obvious Henri had already made up his mind.
As the last girl disappeared he looked at Madame Lelong. "What was the name of the first one?"
"Sophie. I thought myself she was a little too big."
"I liked her."
"She'd never be able to model a suit," Dina said.
Henri gave an irritable shrug. "I'm tired of all these stereotyped, emaciated creatures. Sophie is different from anyone we have used before."
"Really?" Dina said, and wise to the ways of women, Henri immediately caught up her hand and drew it to his lips.
"My lovely Dina, you do not look pretty when your claws are showing. Now come, let me give you a drink in my office." He looked at Alix. "Will you join us?"
"I don't have time. I want to get back to my office. But I'll be here again later."
It was midafternoon when Alix returned to the salon to find Paul and Henri busily working on toiles—fine, white muslin replicas of each design. As each dress or suit was completed it was carefully removed from the model and carried upstairs to the workroom, where it would then be transposed into the actual material.
The sun had already set when Sophie came in to take her place on the stand, ready for the two men to start draping a new toile on her. Paul repinned the side seams of the skirt, and at a whispered suggestion from his father, chopped off a couple of inches from the hem of the short, flyaway jacket. Then he stepped back and narrowed his eyes.
"It's still wrong!" he said. "Sophie's too fat for this style. I'd rather make it for Louise."
"You'd rather make everything for Louise!" Henri exclaimed. "That's your biggest mistake. You imagine all women are beanpoles."
Afraid that unless she intervened she would be witness to another scene, Alix entered the fray.
"Most designers work with an ideal woman in mind," she said smoothly. "If you create for the average woman, you'll end up with a wholesale collection!"
"Don't knock wholesale!" Henri's good humor was restored. "They make more money than we do." He glanced at his son. "All right, Paul. You do your toiles on your ideal woman and I'll do my toiles on mine."
Paul gave Alix a strange look and handed the scissors to his father. "Sophie's your ideal at the moment," he said dryly, "so you'd better take over."
Henri took the scissors and Alix resumed her seat as Paul left the room to fetch Louise.
It was interesting to watch Henri at work, for only then did he become oblivious of the world, no longer regarding himself as the pivot of it. For ten minutes he was absorbed in total and silent concentration, and only when Sophie gave an exclamation of pain did he come back to the present.
"Sacricoeur! What is it?"
"You drew blood." The girl moved a beautifully rounded shoulder on which a long, red weal had sprung.
"My dear, I'm so sorry." He pressed his lips to the mark, and though he drew back quickly, it was not before Alix glimpsed a look of triumph on Sophie's face.
Was Dina on the way out, she wondered involuntarily, and her first feeling of elation was followed by a sense of depression that defied analysis. It could only be better for Dina's career if her affair with Henri ended, for sooner or later they would overstep the mark and land up in Jamie Hunter's column. Yet if Henri gave up Dina before the actress was tired of him, who knew what she would do? Throw herself into work or find herself another man? The latter course seemed more obvious, as did the man to whom she would turn: Paul Duval. Without question it was the best way of infuriating Henri, who would see her choice as a pointed reference to his own more mature years. But would Paul allow himself to be used as a sop to Dina's pride? Or was he so fond of the girl that he would not mind being second best?
The thought of Paul with Dina was so unexpectedly painful that she closed her eyes, only opening them again as Sophie began to ease her way out of the toile, careful not to disturb any of the strategic pins. Clad only in silk panties and a black brassiere, she made a breathtakingly lovely picture as she tilted back her head and looked at the man in front of her.
Alix was conscious of an expectancy trembling between the two of them, and not wishing to be a party to it, she went quickly to the door.
"There's no need for me to stay here any longer. If you could tell your son that I—"
"Tell me yourself," Paul cut in, coming into the room with a length of brocade over his arm.
"I'm going to work out some copy on the name Phoenix," she replied. "There's nothing more for me to do here, and it's late."
He looked at his watch. "It's nearly eight. I never realized. I should think my father and I will be working through the—"
"I intend to stop for a meal," Henri said behind them. "One cannot work on an empty stomach, Paul. You should stop for an hour, too."
"That's not a bad idea. What about us all going round the corner to Antoine's?"
"You take Alix," Henri said smoothly, "and I'll put Sophie into a taxi and have a snack on my own."
"Very well," Paul said in a flat voice. "Come on, Alix."
Without waiting for her to say yes, he caught her elbow in an unexpectedly firm grip and led her out. Looking at his stern expression as they walked along the road, she would have given anything to know his thoughts. Was he, like her, aware of Henri's interest in Sophie or did he regard it as a passing attraction that would not affect his affair with Dina?
It was not until they were seated in the discreetly lit French restaurant that he appeared to relax.
"What a day it's been! It's at times like this that I admire my father."
Alix wondered whether Paul realized how much he had given away in that sentence. What were the times in his life when he had not had any admiration? When he had despised and hated him? She stopped abruptly. Why had she used the word hated? Surely it was too strong to apply to a father and son?
"Alix!" Paul spoke her name and with a start she realized he had been talking to her.
"I'm sorry," she apologized. "I was daydreaming."
"It wasn't important. I just wanted to know how you feel about lobster?"
"Much happier than having them feel about me!"
He chuckled and fine lines crinkled around his eyes. "Will Newburg suit you?"
"It sounds delicious—though very fattening."
"You can afford it. You're too thin if anything."
"I thought you liked thin women," she teased.
"For my clothes—not necessarily for my life!"
Conscious of a feeling of warmth engendered by his words, she laughed and was glad to be dining alone with him.
The hour passed quickly, and r
elaxing over coffee, she regretted they would soon have to return to the salon.
"I wonder if you're glad the original designs were stolen," she said with a daring made possible by two glasses of wine. "If they hadn't been, you'd never have been given the opportunity of using your own sketches."
He rubbed the side of his face in a gesture of tiredness and took several moments before he replied. "You don't understand me, Alix. You see my work in a much more personal way than I do."
"But your work is personal," she protested. "It's like a painter saying he doesn't care whether his pictures are ever put on view!"
"Lots of painters don't care!"
"Then they can't have any ambition," she said vehemently. "And I refuse to believe you're not ambitious."
"Why do you see lack of ambition as a vice? Some of the nicest people have no ambition."
"Talent invariably brings ambition," she said crisply. "It's in the nature of a human being to want to use all his assets. A writer wants people to read his books and a musician wants them to listen to his music."
"And I should want women to wear the clothes I design?"
"Don't you?"
He half smiled. "What a difficult woman you are to argue with!" He twirled a half-empty glass of wine between his fingers. It cast a glow of scarlet over them and she shivered, inexplicably reminded of blood.
"What stops you from starting on your own?" she asked, repeating a question she had asked him on the first night of Dina's play. "Or are you going to tell me you like having to fight your father the whole time?"
"I dislike it." The words were spoken flatly, their very lack of expression making them all the more poignant. "When I first began to work with my father I felt he would teach me a lot. But I soon realized that far from encouraging my talent he was doing everything to hinder it. Yet I stayed because I knew it would upset my mother if I left."
"And you've remained with him all these years for the same reason? It doesn't make sense! You're not a child."
"I'm my mother's child. Her happiness means a great deal to me."
"It must if you're willing to sacrifice your whole future!"
"Hardly that," he said dryly. "I'm part of Duval's."
"You should be Duval's. You should have your own salon—or at the very least your own Collection."
"We're back to ambition." His tone was rueful. "And I've already told you I'm not an ambitious person. My mother's happiness is more important to me. That's why I stay with my father. Being with him every day—working closely together—I can keep him from going completely off the rails."
There was an uncomfortable silence, broken this time by Alix.
"Has he always been such a womanizer?"
"He's become worse as he's gotten older."
"Why doesn't your mother leave him?"
"I asked her that once, and she said she'd rather have him from time to time than never have him at all."
"How much of that is due to love," Alix asked, "and how much to pride?"
"In a woman's mind, love and pride are often confused. But as long as my father comes home on weekends and still keeps up the pretense of marriage, she's satisfied. And I'm satisfied for her. That's why I've stayed with him."
"It hasn't been easy for you, though," Alix said, and looking into his face, saw the answer written in the sensitive mouth, in the sherry-colored eyes over which the lids closed enigmatically. "Have you never been afraid that one day your father would love another woman sufficiently to ask for his freedom?"
"No. His affairs never last. And they have never worried me, either. Silly girls with shallow little hearts. It's only with Dina that I…" He stopped speaking and his expression became impossible to read.
Feeling as if a door had closed on her, Alix gathered up her bag. Paul paid the bill and they walked out into the cool night air. One thing stood out clearly from their conversation tonight: Paul loved Dina. It had been apparent in his admission that, until now, he had never worried about the silly hearts of the silly girls with whom his father had had affairs. But with Dina it was different.
She turned and glanced at him. His figure was illumined by a streetlight and he looked desperately sad. Yet she was sad, too—for him and for herself. But.it was her own sadness that unnerved her, for she knew no reason she should feel like that about a man she barely knew.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The showing of the Duval Collection took place as planned, and the newspapers, briefed by Alix, whipped up interest to fever heat. Everyone knew that the original clothes had had to be scrapped because the designs had been stolen and copied; and though this would undoubtedly win them a sympathetic press, the old hands at the salon knew that the people who really mattered— the buyers who flocked to London from all over the world—would need much more than sympathy to make them place their orders.
The show was due to commence at eleven in the morning, but when Alix reached the salon at nine, it was already bustling with activity. Florists were still arranging baskets of flowers in the alcoves on the stairs, girls were spraying scent in the entrance hall and apprentices scurried between the floors, the dresses over their arms hidden by white sheets. No one, but no one, must dare glimpse the Line before the opening!
In the salon itself, gilt chairs were drawn up in rows, and a battery of floodlights vied with the glittering chandeliers to illumine the catwalk down which the models would walk.
Alix rushed here, there and everywhere. Used though she was to theatrical first nights, she found the atmosphere here far more exciting. In a play one only felt that the tension existed among the cast and the author and producer, with the technicians and stage hands regarding it as yet another workaday event. But in the salon, everyone from Henri and Paul down to the lowliest midinette were anxiously awaiting the outcome of all the backbreaking hours of work they had put in.
In the dressing room confusion reigned. In a space habitually reserved for three girls and a dresser, eight models and three dressers now struggled together, with further pandemonium coming from the fitters, the hairdresser and a feverish young man armed with jewelry he was endeavoring to unload upon several models. Seamstresses kept coming and going, brandishing clothes and the accessories that went with them: hats, shoes and bags. The models, in scanty bras and panties, were putting the final touches to their makeup, the fatigue of the past few days forgotten in the excitement that lay ahead.
In a far corner Sophie was studiously painting her face, applying wine-red lipstick to her full mouth and outlining her eyes with thick black pencil. Alix watched her for a full moment, marveling at her calm amid such confusion, then made her way to the salon, which was now completely full. Henri and Paul were nowhere to be seen, though Madame Lelong came hurrying toward her.
"There's no room for any more people," she whispered. "We must start at once. The models will get nervous if they wait too long."
"Where are the Duvals?"
"In Monsieur Duval's office. I have promised to let them know how it goes."
"Why don't they watch for themselves?"
"Monsieur Henri is too superstitious."
Alix wondered if Paul was the same or remained with his father out of loyalty. But she knew the loyalty he felt was to his mother… Drat the man. Why should she care what his motivations were?
"You'd better start," she said aloud to Madame Lelong, and as the woman disappeared into the salon, made her own way to the changing room.
Pandemonium still reigned and she retreated, taking up a stand on the main landing, which would afford her a view of the salon.
Once started, the Collection was shown with a swing, with one dress following another with lightning rapidity. Music played discreetly and was often drowned by a burst of cheering or clapping when a garment aroused particular appreciation. To Alix's ears this appeared to happen frequently and she prayed that it indicated the success of the show. If it didn't, she'd have nothing to publicize.
An hour after it began, the climax
of the show came With the wedding gown, and like an ice queen, Sophie slowly walked the ramp. Everyone craned forward to see her: the entire audience; the little seamstresses in their white aprons, looking like doves as they leaned over the banisters; the black-dressed vendeuses and all the many other people whose work and effort made Duval's what it was.
Alix silently applauded Henri's genius in choosing Sophie as his leading model. He had discarded the use of conventional white for her, and had made the gown of a silver material the exact shade and glitter of her hair. The dress had no ornamentation and relied for effect on the simplicity of its cut, which showed to full advantage the glorious body beneath it. What man would ever turn down a bride like this?
As Sophie indolently wended her way through the salon she was greeted by a prolonged burst of applause, and it did not need Madame Lelong's aside to Alix for her to know that this collection was going to be one of Henri Duval's greatest triumphs. He had taken Paul's masterly cut and allied it to his own brand of showmanship, and the two men, working together to save a dangerous situation, had amalgamated the best of both their abilities. The father's love of bright materials and lavish embroidery was tempered by the son's preference for subtle shades and no ornamentation.
The next half hour was one of the most hectic Alix could remember. Henri strutted around like a peacock, proudly pointing out the subtleties of the new line and extolling the very lack of beading he had so hotly disputed with his son weeks before. Bulbs flashed as photographers vied with each other to get shots of the most outstanding clothes, while buyers clamored for their orders to be taken as soon as possible, all eager to get the garments of their choice back to their workrooms where they could be unpicked, copied line for line and then subtly altered so as to enable them to be mass-produced.
It was in the middle of this frenzy that Alix discovered that Paul was nowhere to be seen. She moved farther into the salon, wondering if he had slipped past without her noticing. But he was not there and she ran downstairs and along the narrow corridor that led out to the walled garden. The French window at the end was open but the garden was deserted and she went back along the corridor and knocked at his door.
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