The Milliner's Secret

by Natalie Meg Evans

  ‘Take this cup.’

  She reached for it, lowering her lashes because otherwise she would see his arousal. That was the sort of reality you dealt with by steps, first in the dark, then in demi-light. As she took the cup, the coffee aroma hit her. Blood rushed from her head and from far away she heard the shatter of china and tasted soap. Then, red-tinted nothingness.

  When she came to, she was warm, naked and steady breathing filled her ears. So. Dried like a child then put to bed like a drunk, having landed head first in Dietrich’s groin. If she was going to faint every time she smelt coffee, Paris would finish her off.

  She couldn’t resist checking that Dietrich was in one piece. Flying coffee might have scalded him, or broken china could have stuck in his eye. He seemed all right, his features almost boyish in repose. She fitted herself closer and his arm came around her, drawing her against him. The Hôtel Duet’s soap smelt of spring hyacinths.

  ‘Coralie.’ He woke more with each syllable and then there were two arms around her and his lips were on hers, explorative, then urgent as desire took him over. Coralie let him lead, glad that he wanted nothing imaginative from her this first time. He was a man who would take the lead in everything, drawing her along . . . and why not? Letting go and trusting, her body cried out in delighted relief. If he noticed she wasn’t a virgin, he didn’t comment. Or seem to care. So that worry slipped away and love crept into the bed.

  Sneaking in when her eyes were closed.

  CHAPTER 4

  She’d won a pot of honey once, in a charity raffle. The carpet in Maison Javier’s salon was the same colour. Its pile encroached over the toes of her shoes. They were about to watch the afternoon parade and Coralie felt as frightened as an under-rehearsed soloist.

  Dietrich led the way to a cream leather banquette, and sat with one arm along its back. Coralie tried to copy his posture, but it was difficult in a dress and she ended up sitting like somebody waiting for a job interview. He’d brought her here, to rue de la Trémoille, after taking her for lunch on the nearby Champs-Élysées, explaining that he’d selected this house because Roland Javier was Spanish. As a Spaniard, Javier revered womanhood. He never sought to dress his clients as little girls, or surreal sideshows or, indeed, as boys. ‘Also, most of his mannequins are very tall. There is no point showing you haute couture worn by pocket Venuses.’

  Wrapped in the afterglow of more lovemaking, Coralie had smiled and nodded. In bed with him, she’d stepped into womanhood, learning to look without blushing, to touch and be touched. Finding herself in the salon of an elite couturier sent her back a few paces.

  Dietrich raised her hand to his lips. ‘You are allowed to enjoy this, you know. Did you never go to Molyneux in London, or Stiebel or Norman Hartnell?’

  ‘Not really.’ She presumed he was naming dress designers, but wasn’t sure so she avoided his eye by searching in her handbag, a neat little rectangle of the softest leather, from Hermès. A gift from Dietrich. Just to say something, she scolded, ‘You shouldn’t be spending all this money on me.’

  ‘And who should I spend it on?’

  The name ‘Ottilia’ bounced into her mind, followed by ‘Your wife?’ but instead she answered, ‘Yourself, of course.’

  ‘There are only so many black, grey or French-navy suits one man can own, and since I’m always on the move, I cannot collect cars or horses.’

  ‘Why are you always on the move?’ In her experience, men who shifted around a lot were escaping from the police or from debt collectors.

  ‘I have restless feet. But for all that, I take no pleasure in buying shoes. Would you admire a man who owned forty pairs?’

  She got the feeling that he’d just shuffled off a difficult question but she let the subject drop, because Josette, the vendeuse assigned to her, was setting down glasses of chilled wine and wafer biscuits sprinkled with almonds. How indulgent – alcohol at three in the afternoon. No sooner had she released the thought than another took its place, that of her father heading down Shand Street for his lunchtime pint. She breathed deeply until the image went away. She might be her father’s daughter in some respects, but not when it came to the demon drink.

  Music filled the salon, waterfall strings seeping from a proscenium arch flanked with flowers. Shallow steps led down to a walkway ending in front of the banquette. ‘Catwalk’, Dietrich called it. Ten or so other ladies shared their banquette, which must have been thirty feet long. Some undoubtedly were mothers and daughters, and they all shared an effortless posture, legs sloping to the side. All wore suits or smart town dresses. Coralie felt that – without even shifting their profiles – they’d evaluated her flowered pink cotton, with its neck flounces and pussy-cat bow, and marked her down. She loved the dress she was in, insisting on it even when that first vendeuse at Printemps had tried to dissuade her: ‘It is too fussy for Mademoiselle and rose does not flatter such fair skin.’

  Too bad. Pink was her favourite colour. In fact, she liked it so much, she’d bought another dress in carnation, and one of dark madder. But, to judge from the glances she was getting, pink wasn’t considered smart daywear at Javier. Why hadn’t Dietrich said anything?

  She was wondering if he’d let them leave, when a girl in black fastened back the proscenium curtains. A middle-aged woman, whom Josette whispered was the directrice, announced that the afternoon parade was about to begin.

  Coralie settled down, intrigued in spite of herself. All she had to do was pick out a couple of dresses, and Dietrich would buy them. Everybody happy.

  The first mannequin had golden hair. She sauntered past them while the directrice, whose name was Mademoiselle Liliane, described her ensemble.

  ‘Heloïse wears number one, Esprit. Fashioned in lustrous cotton, this simple dress is perfect for afternoon tea, a visit to a museum, even a stroll in the woods. Mesdames, Monsieur, appreciate the narrow pleats, which flare as Heloïse moves. Esprit drapes when still, swings as she walks, a symphony of line and movement.’

  After ten minutes’ similar commentary, Coralie’s head spun. How were you meant to remember so many different names? Esprit, Élan, Eldorado, Elderberry. Actually, there hadn’t been an Elderberry, but all the same . . . and whoever made these clothes – Javier, was that his name? – was wedded to white. White everything, worn by long-necked girls with dancer’s arms. It was like watching a flock of storks. No patterns, spots or stripes. It was all so drab.

  So, instead of watching the clothes, she concentrated on the girls. Two were petite brunettes, Nelly and Zinaida. They laughed, and were what Mademoiselle Deveau would call ‘animée’. The tall ones shared a gravitas, as if extra inches meant they couldn’t smile. Some were statuesque, others slender as reeds. Their complexions were flawless, and there must have been a resident hairdresser round the back somewhere. Coralie had been happy with her body an hour ago. Now all she could think of was the fat she’d put on her bottom, and the shoulder muscles that were a legacy of ironing at Granny Flynn’s. As each girl wafted away through the arch, another took her place in tempo with Mademoiselle Liliane’s commentary. There must be a mad paddle to get them into the next costume, the next hat. No sign of it, though, as they came out, calm and majestic as swans.

  ‘Lovely, yes?’ Dietrich asked.

  ‘They could have come straight out of Hollywood.’

  ‘I mean the clothes.’

  ‘Oh, they’re really nice too. It’s just there’s a lot of, you know, white.’

  ‘This is a spring–summer collection. Ah.’ Dietrich nodded at a girl in a raw silk tailor-made. ‘Black. Happy now? Be sure to take the number of any items you like.’ He gave her the pad and a pencil Josette had left on their table. Coralie had assumed it was for noting down the drinks’ tab.

  ‘To be honest, Dietrich, they aren’t really me.’

  Did his eye halt for an instant on her flounces, on the pussy-cat bow? ‘Do you imagine I have brought you here by mistake? Javier is not for women who like their clothes to shou
t to the rafters. Ottilia wears Javier.’

  Bugger. Ottilia. Obvious, really, when she recalled the woman’s Derby Day outfit. Coralie sketched a jealous zigzag with her pencil then wrote ‘Esprit’ because that was the only name she could remember. When Mademoiselle Liliane named the black crêpe tailor-made ‘Envie’, she wrote that down too.

  Sighing, Dietrich beckoned to a mannequin. ‘Mademoiselle, if you please?’ The girl assumed a languid pose beside them. ‘Coralie, look properly. See? A plain dress, perhaps, but take your eyes for a walk. This sleeve?’

  Obediently, she followed his pointing finger. Silk in a shade of blue that reminded her of prayer books left in a cupboard too long.

  ‘Take in the detail.’

  She peered, as if reading the label on a very small tin. The sleeve ended in a turned-back cuff with tiny mushroom buttons pushed through loops without a wrinkle. A pattern of rose briars had been worked in thread exactly the same shade as the dress. Every stitch was of identical length, and that she could appreciate. It had taken two years’ training to reach the standard required for Pettrew & Lofthouse, every stitch precisely one sixteenth of an inch. ‘I’d have made the embroidery jollier.’

  ‘You are still missing the point.’

  To her relief, out came azure blue day dresses, after which the mannequins appeared in beachwear, then in skimpy tennis dresses. At last, some jazzy fabrics. The evening gowns that finished the parade were muted but their shapes were sexy and the girls wore big costume jewellery. Coralie put down a couple more names and Dietrich smiled. He picked up her hand and his smile turned confidential.

  ‘Have you had enough?’ she asked, meaning, Shall we go back to the hotel?

  ‘Coralie, we haven’t even started.’

  She strangled a groan.

  As the final ripple of white disappeared through the arch, her vendeuse returned. ‘You are a little overcome, Mademoiselle de Lirac? It is a long show. Monsieur Javier could not decide which of his models to choose and, in the end, allowed nearly sixty. But you are pleased?’

  Coralie nodded, rather too vigorously. ‘Lovely, Josette, thank you. Only I don’t think I want to try anything on today.’

  Josette returned a perplexed frown. ‘Indeed, no, that would not be at all possible.’

  Coralie knew she’d put her foot in it, but wasn’t quite sure why.

  The following day, climbing into a taxi the Duet’s commissionaire had ordered for them, she heard Dietrich instruct, ‘Boulevard de la Madeleine.’ As they drove off, he said, ‘We’re going to our favourite hat shop.’

  ‘And I thought we only had fair hair in common.’

  He gave a piercing look. ‘More than that, surely. If there was racing today, I would take you to Longchamps and let you bet on the winner. Then our affair would have come full circle.’

  Our affair. As the cab sped down boulevard Malesherbes, Coralie turned the word over. ‘Affair’ meant adultery. Affairs were sordid, and usually short. Yet there was nothing sordid in the way she felt about Dietrich. His face in profile, his voice on the telephone, calling down to invite her to lunch or lovemaking. Or the hot knife that ran across her stomach when he put his hand to the small of her back or took her arm. That felt as pure as a church candle, though she supposed the world saw it differently. She wanted Dietrich to feel the same reverence for her.

  As the taxi swung into place de la Madeleine, a cliff-face of sacred columns took her mind off her fears. She was still craning round for a last view of the church of St Mary Magdalene as the taxi pulled up behind a highly polished Talbot, with a chauffeur at the wheel. This was boulevard de la Madeleine, she supposed. The moment Dietrich opened her door, Coralie was out, rushing up to a window filled with hats on metal stalks.

  They were all pink, from palest peach, intensifying to coral and flamingo before fading at the end of the line to the colour of unpainted plaster. Some were trimmed with goose feathers, others with dyed spotted guinea fowl, or cockerel, though the fashionable world referred to that as coque. One had a brim lined with downy ostrich, which would send you mad with tickling. Her eye kept coming back to the last in the line. Plaster-pink, or ‘shrimp’, to be a little more succulent, it was simplicity itself. A platter of dyed coque feather, it would curl diagonally across the face. Even though it carried reminiscences of Sheila Flynn, Coralie craved it. Then her glance slid upwards. Etched into the glass – La Passerinette. Above the letter i a small grey bird was pictured in the act of perching. A sparrow? A finch? Or a poor creature about to be caught on birdlime? She felt a bit the same.

  Five minutes inside this shop would expose her. She looked for Dietrich, willing to turn her ankle – anything – to win back her seat in the taxi. But the cab was leaving and Dietrich was holding open the shop door for her.

  ‘You’re on the wrong side of the glass, Liebchen. Come on.’

  La Passerinette’s salon was just large enough to accommodate two tables, each with a triple mirror, and a sofa to which Dietrich headed with a familiarity that heightened Coralie’s discomfort. A single assistant was attending to an ancient lady in black. That they’d interrupted a dispute became obvious when the customer barked that her head measured ‘Fifty-six centimetres and always has. Don’t tell me it’s fifty-seven. Damn fool!’

  The assistant was struggling to get her tape measure round the woman’s hair. ‘To be sure, Madame la Marquise, one must take account of your curls. Madame still has a remarkable number.’

  ‘Counting, are you?’

  ‘Not at all. Please sit still.’

  Coralie saw the girl’s difficulty. Because she had a curvature of the neck, the marquise was poking her chin forward to see herself in the mirror. Her coffee-brown curls were slipping backwards. Then they slipped right off and Coralie choked off a giggle. The assistant deftly replaced the hairpiece before turning to look at Coralie through spectacles as thick as jam-jars.

  ‘I beg your pardon, but Mademoiselle Lorienne will come in a moment, if you would kindly take a seat.’

  The girl failed to acknowledge Dietrich. Perching beside him on the sofa, Coralie whispered, ‘Aren’t men allowed in here or what?’

  He replied quietly, ‘The poor girl doesn’t see me. To her, the world is a blur.’

  ‘How can she be a milliner?’

  ‘Perhaps by serving only ladies more shortsighted than she. Normally, she’s hidden in a back room. As it is nice and quiet, we’ll wait for Lorienne.’

  Just ‘Lorienne’. Why was Dietrich on first-name terms with a woman running a hat shop? He volunteered no more, so she studied the shop, liking its dusky pink walls and the overblown chandelier that cast reflections on the hats in the window. I’ll have one of those pink ones, she promised herself. Assuming they didn’t cost a fortune. Grey and pink hatboxes caught her eye and her gasp of recognition made Dietrich look up in concern.

  ‘The hat I was wearing the day I met you,’ she said, despite herself. ‘Black feathers? It was from this shop and came out of a box the same as those over there. Your friend Ottilia said she had one like it.’

  ‘It was made here, made specially. There was only ever one model.’

  ‘That’s unbelievable.’

  ‘I don’t see why.’

  It was strange, but she couldn’t blurt out the whole story. So she tried half the story. ‘I borrowed it off a neighbour. Sort of . . . Sheila Flynn’s her name. If it was Ottilia’s hat, how did Sheila get hold of it?’

  Dietrich stared upwards, as if surveying a selection of ideas. ‘I can imagine what happened. Ottilia loved the idea of black feathers but disliked the reality. The hat made her look deathly – so she gave it to her maid. I’m guessing the maid took it to London when she accompanied Ottilia, and sold it. Dealers pay good money for cast-offs with Paris labels. The coincidence must be that your neighbour bought it. Or it may not even be such a coincidence, if somebody had many copies made with fake La Passerinette labels. That happens. We could find out, if you wanted to go back to Lo
ndon.’

  ‘I don’t want to.’

  ‘Coralie, you look as if you’re staring into your own grave. Is there something you wish to tell me?’

  ‘Yes. I wish you hadn’t brought me here.’

  ‘But it is a wonderful shop.’

  ‘Dietrich, why did Ottilia pretend to be interested when I said I was a milliner?’ When I said – three small steps towards confession. Join up the clues. Get it over with.

  ‘She was interested.’

  Coralie shook her head. ‘A woman like her? Don’t be polite.’

  ‘All right.’ Again, Dietrich consulted the air above him. ‘Ottilia floats through life like a flower-head cast upon the river. I dare say she minded seeing another woman wearing her hat but it is not her way to make a scene. She would think it vulgar.’

  ‘She certainly thought me vulgar.’

  ‘Did she? My memory is of you treading on the top of my foot – which hurts still, by the way. And of seeing your back, straight and slender, and hoping you would turn round so I could see your face. Which I hoped would be lovely. Finding it was, though complete with a black eye, I was intrigued.’

  ‘What brought you to England?’

  ‘To attend country-house sales and buy pictures. And to see Ottilia. She made me to take her to the Derby, not to see the racing – she doesn’t like horses and hates crowds – but because she’d heard that at Epsom one finds Gypsy fortune-tellers. I told you that day, she had a question to which she needed an answer.’

  Coralie’s image of Ottilia was of her staring at the ground, her white clothes blowing like foam. ‘She was crying when she came out of that wagon.’

  ‘She learned that there is danger in asking for the truth because you may get it.’ This was accompanied by such a particular look that Coralie reddened and changed the subject.