The Milliner's Secret

by Natalie Meg Evans

  So he had noticed. Course he had. ‘It wasn’t Donal. He and I have never been more than pals. Can I tell you another time? I feel raw with so much telling.’

  ‘I have no business to ask, but do not blame me for minding.’

  ‘When I’m ready.’

  ‘And until then you are free to be yourself. Free to be Coralie de Lirac, who walks down the boulevards of Paris with fifty pairs of eyes following after her.’

  He was a little drunk, she decided. Fifty pairs of eyes? Maybe, if she had her skirt tucked into her drawers.

  ‘I want you to imbibe Paris, Coralie, absorb her so that I can see her through your eyes.’

  ‘See her through your own!’

  ‘You understand that to us Germans, Paris, La Lutèce, is the mythical white hart we chase through the dark forests. She is our quarry, our fantasy, for ever out of reach.’

  Two bottles of Pissotte was probably why she answered, ‘I’m going to get hold of her by the tail, just you see. But would you buy me a hat shop? Like Ottilia did for Lorienne?’

  It was probably why he laughed and said, ‘Of course, just not yet.’

  That night, in each other’s arms, he murmured, ‘If you intend to remain in Paris, your papers, your language skills, your history must all be impeccable. All traces of Englishness must be erased, including overcooked meat.’

  ‘You’re frightening me.’

  ‘Coralie de Lirac must have a history nobody can dispute. You told me your father was Belgian?’

  ‘From Tubize, in Brabant.’

  ‘Then we will start there. You must have photographs taken. Easy enough. Louise Deveau can take you to a booth in one of the big department stores.’

  He said nothing more about it until, around mid-July, he handed her a parcel. ‘Your new identity.’

  They were sitting on a bench in parc Monceau, filling in the time between making love and having dinner. Men in overalls were fixing tricolor bunting between the trees in preparation for the 14 July celebrations. Taking documents from an envelope, she discovered that Coralie de Lirac had been born Marie-Caroline, daughter of Guy de Lirac, a lawyer from Nivelles, Belgium. ‘What’s wrong with Tubize?’

  ‘Why give the hounds an easy trail? Go to Nivelles some day, familiarise yourself with it.’

  ‘All right. But come on, a lawyer? My dad hates the law.’

  ‘Hated. He is dead, your poor father from Nivelles.’

  ‘Why Marie-Caroline? Why give me something extra to remember?’

  ‘In Catholic France and Belgium, children are invariably named for saints and I cannot find a Sainte Coralie.’

  ‘I was called Cora for my grandmother, but Mum said Coralie had a nicer ring. She said it would stand out on a billboard if I ever followed her into the profession. Theatre, I mean.’

  ‘You can still be Coralie. The French have nicknames too. But you were baptised Marie-Caroline.’

  Her mother had been given the maiden name of Marlène Decorte, also from Nivelles. There was a French passport, artfully aged, giving Coralie’s occupation as a modiste, which, Dietrich said, was the nearest the French had to ‘milliner’. Her birthdate was given as 8 November 1915.

  She exclaimed, ‘I’m October the twenty-second!’

  ‘Not any more. Learn every word of these papers. Repeat them to your reflection in the mirror night and morning. November the eighth is my birthday, which means we can always celebrate together. Wherever we may be.’

  ‘In Paris, I hope.’

  ‘I hope too, but I can’t neglect my other life for ever. Like the little bird on Ottilia’s shop window, I am passerine.’

  ‘Is that where “La Passerinette” comes from? I’ve always wondered—’

  ‘She is a little migratory bird. Pretty, grey and rose-pink and she breeds in southern France, in dry thickets, but winters in Africa.’

  ‘So . . . ’

  ‘Like la Passerinette, I perch, I fly away. These documents will get you a residence certificate.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘Coralie, what is the matter?’

  ‘I won’t remember a new birthday, and if you’d grown up in London, you’d hate November. Fog, beginning to end.’

  ‘From now on, talk only of Paris.’ Taking the papers from her because she was crumpling them, Dietrich added, ‘On November the eighth, I will take you to the Tour d’Argent and afterwards, love you in ways that transcend your experience and stretch my imagination. Then you will remember it.’

  ‘So you’re staying until November?’

  Dietrich moved a curl that had dropped over her eye. ‘I’ll stay until I know you can fly unaided.’

  They danced in the hot streets on 14 July and she slept till noon the following day, when Dietrich telephoned her room to tell her to put on one of her La Passerinette hats, ‘Whichever feels most comfortable, and a simple dress. You must be able to move freely. I need your help.’ Coralie sat up. He sounded serious.

  ‘Ready in no time,’ she promised, then remembered she had a fitting at Javier at two, for autumn suits. Four summer ensembles had already been delivered: one black, three white. She hadn’t worn them. They were gorgeous but, she hated to admit it, the waistlines were too tight. Blame croissants and jam. ‘Dietrich, I forgot – I have that appointment . . . but I can easily cancel.’

  ‘No, don’t do that. We’ll visit Javier, and then on to rue de Vaugirard afterwards.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘Left Bank, by the Palais de Luxembourg.’

  ‘I’m scared, Dietrich.’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘Of needing to be useful. I’ve forgotten how.’

  He only laughed.

  Coralie sang as she put on a spotted linen dress and one of the soft, sisal hats Lorienne had made for her. She even laughed later as the fitter at Maison Javier exclaimed, ‘I think that you are finally learning to enjoy, and not endure, Mademoiselle. Though, pardon, you have put three centimetres on your middle since I first met you. Another adjustment to your toile, I fear.’

  Afterwards Coralie met Dietrich in the salon, and they set off for the Left Bank, taking the Métro two stops further than necessary for the pleasure of walking back through the Jardin du Luxembourg, whose fountains and geometric lawns freshened a blazing day. On rue de Vaugirard, they stopped at a four-storey house overlooking a corner of the gardens. Imposing double doors contained a wicket, a smaller door cut into the right-hand side. Dietrich rang a bell, and the wicket was eventually opened by a man whose empty left sleeve was pinned, Nelson-style, across his front. Old soldier, Coralie thought. Though not that old, in fact. Mid-fifties, her father’s age. Her former father’s age. The man demanded to know their business.

  Dietrich replied patiently, ‘I am Graf von Elbing. Madame Corvet has been letting me in without fuss every day for a month.’

  So this was where he’d been coming. Coralie stole a glance at the name plaque to one side of the door, reading ‘von Silberstrom’. What was the likelihood that Dietrich would shortly produce the key they’d fallen out over?

  The concierge was refusing to summon his wife. ‘Before this, you came with another man. Where is he?’

  Dietrich sighed. ‘Is that really your business, Monsieur Corvet? Kindly let us in.’

  Corvet wrapped his good arm around his empty sleeve. ‘Only my wife and I are authorised to enter this property without Madame la Baronne being present.’

  ‘That is not correct. I am also authorised to enter, whenever I wish, by the express desire of Madame la Baronne.’

  Corvet jutted his chin. ‘Think you can take over everything, don’t you, you Germans? And now you’re bombing the hell out of Spain. Murderer. Go away, before I call a policeman!’

  Coralie smothered a giggle. She’d never seen Dietrich so completely flummoxed. But it was too hot to stand about waiting for a declaration of peace. With a soft groan, she reached for the wall and gave at the knees. ‘I’m going to faint—’

&n
bsp; A moment later she was seated in a cool courtyard, and the concierge was fetching water. Without giving him time to return, Dietrich drew her into the lobby, where he pressed the lift button for level two, deuxième étage. As they went up, he kissed the side of Coralie’s head. ‘Well performed. I’d have been standing outside all evening. Memories are long, very long.’

  ‘I’m not surprised, if he lost his arm fighting you lot. What did he mean about Spain? They’re having a civil war, aren’t they?’

  Dietrich said nothing while the lift was in motion. But as he opened the lattice cage-door, he said, ‘German air squadrons are supporting Franco’s Nationalists against the Spanish Republicans. They’ve bombed Madrid and some smaller towns.’

  She didn’t know who Franco was, but she’d heard the porter at the Duet grumbling about ‘damn Fascists’ trying to overthrow an elected government. For her part, she was on the side of the people being bombed. But Dietrich? His tone had given little away and there was nothing to read in his profile. She tried fishing: ‘D’you wish you were there?’

  ‘Flying? Sometimes. You never lose the love. Change the subject, Coralie. You are very good at that.’

  ‘Who are we visiting today?’

  ‘Nobody.’ Dietrich steered her towards a door that was a single sheet of walnut veneer, brass knob and fingerplate polished to a sheen.

  Coralie had already admired the wrought-iron stair balustrade, with its gleaming brass handrail. Elbow grease was clearly in good supply here. This building, like virtually all those she’d entered in Paris, consisted of separate flats linked by service stairs, but this was the finest so far. The floor below would contain the best flat, with high ceilings and lacy window balconies. This one, the door to which Dietrich was unlocking with the predicted silver key, would house people a social step down. ‘Who is the “Madame la Baronne” Corvet mentioned?’

  ‘Ottilia, of course.’

  ‘She’s an aristocrat?’

  ‘No.’ Dietrich let her precede him and closed the door behind her. ‘Titles have no sway in Germany. All they do is get you tables in restaurants. Sometimes they get you into trouble.’

  ‘I’ve come across barons in fairy tales and they’re always wicked.’

  ‘Ottilia’s father was Freiherr von Silberstrom, an industrialist from Berlin, though the family came originally from Austria. Ottilia was born “Freiin”, which translates as “Baroness”, or “Madame la Baronne”, and she has no trace of wickedness.’

  ‘I’m sure you told me she was married. So why does she use her father’s name, not her husband’s?’

  Dietrich flicked on a light, saying, ‘Go ahead but take care, the place is hazardous. To answer your question, Ottilia’s husband is Franz Lascar, who was a famous singer in Germany but fell out with the Berlin Gestapo – they’re our secret police force. His songs insulted our leader. Ottilia reverted to her maiden name, hoping the Gestapo would overlook the fact that she was married to a traitor.’

  ‘Did they?’

  ‘The Gestapo do not overlook anything. Lascar is, and always was, bad for her.’

  ‘Like too much jam? Ouch!’ Her knuckle struck a tea-chest edged with metal. She sucked, tasting blood.

  ‘I said be careful.’

  In the front room, shutters blotted out the daylight and a smell of resin took her straight back to her father’s workshop. When Dietrich switched on the main light, followed by a pair of standard lamps, Coralie counted two dozen tea-chests and as many shallow crates. It was like Rotherhithe docks when a ship was being loaded. The resin smell came from sacks full of shavings – presumably to protect the valuables inside the chests. What looked to be hundreds of unframed pictures and prints were stacked against the walls. ‘You bought all this in England?’

  ‘No, no. My English purchases are in a vault near the Hȏtel Drouot, the auction house where they will be sold.’ Dietrich was removing his jacket and tie. ‘This is Ottilia’s art collection.’

  ‘It has its own apartment?’

  ‘Not just its own apartment.’ Dietrich threw open the shutters, flooding the room with sunlight. The vista was of the Jardin du Luxembourg, summer leaves behind wrought-iron railings. ‘Look – it even has a view of the Orangerie. That’s the building through the trees. Nothing but the best for Ottilia’s pictures. They are, theoretically, worth a million pounds.’

  She gaped. As a kid, she’d played a game with Donal that began, ‘If I had a hundred pounds, I’d buy . . .’ They’d considered a hundred pounds quite sufficient for the purchase of their wildest dreams. Dietrich dropped his cufflinks into his pocket and rolled up his sleeves. ‘With Brownlow’s assistance, I have spent every day since June the nineteenth updating the inventory, wrapping and packing.’

  Coralie brushed shavings from the top of the nearest chest, which contained paintings wrapped in near-transparent paper, sealed with gum-strip and labelled. Rolls of the same misty-white paper stood at one end of the room. ‘What a job! I wouldn’t want to be stuck with Brownlow for nearly a month,’ she said.

  ‘No. Brownlow is ill-suited to an artistic environment. Show him an apple, he thinks, “Apple dumpling”, not “Still life by a north-facing aperture”.’

  ‘I wouldn’t think that either. I’d think Eve’s pudding, or fritters with vanilla sugar.’

  ‘Still, I doubt I would have to explain everything twice to you. But, seriously, you must also see I am nowhere near the end, and already I have found pieces missing – for all Monsieur Corvet’s watchfulness.’

  She sensed his anger. ‘Someone’s been stealing?’

  ‘Small items, but those are often the most important. It is why I am so determined to finish, to get these crates away to safety.’

  ‘So what’s my job?’

  Dietrich took a leather-bound book from a shelf. ‘This is the inventory I drew up two years ago, when the collection left Berlin. I will read you a name from the list, and a description, then you will find the picture. I will inspect it, make a comment as to its condition and tick it off. You will wrap and label. Only when we’ve catalogued every last thing can I judge what is missing. You, with a mind that sees in pictures . . . I should have asked you before.’

  ‘I wish you had.’ Coralie surveyed the unframed works against the skirting boards and wondered if Brownlow had been sacked. That’d be a turn-up. ‘Where’s it going, this collection?’

  ‘To Neuendorf, as soon as Ottilia gives her permission. She never gets round to things, and her husband always has better ideas on how to handle her wealth. He would like the collection but my job is to prevent all swindlers getting their hands on it, whether they be light-fingered outsiders or famous tenors.’

  He held up the ledger to the light the better to read it. ‘Right. This is where I left off last time. “View of Oxford colleges across the meadows, George Pyne, 1867, mixed medium, pencil and watercolour.” Think you can find it for me?’

  Coralie’s confidence plunged. She so wanted to help – to outdo vinegar-chops Brownlow – but the nearest she’d ever got to art was saucy seaside postcards. And what the heck was a mixed medium? Walking across the room, selecting a stack at random, she pulled out a glum-looking study of buildings and a meadow. ‘This it?’

  Dietrich took it from her. ‘My God, you are an extraordinary woman. Keep this up, we’ll be finished in time for dinner.’

  It took them four days, and by the end Coralie felt she’d passed through a cultural baptism. At times, tired out by the task, they’d snapped at each other. But mostly they’d worked, joined by an invisible thread. Madame Corvet, as obliging as her husband was sour, brought them coffee and bags of brioche while they worked. At the stroke of six, Dietrich would uncork wine, and by midnight they were crashing into the tea-chests but laughing about it. When each chest was full, they nailed the lid down and toasted it with more wine. Dietrich was intrigued at Coralie’s deftness with a hammer.

  ‘When I was little, my dad worked at the Old Vic theatre. He’d take me
backstage—’

  ‘Your father was a lawyer from the town of Nivelles, remember?’

  By the time the taxi dropped them back at the Duet, they were good only for bed, where they would lie entangled until Brownlow knocked at the door at around seven, informing them, in what Coralie called his coffin-voice, that he had drawn Graf von Elbing’s bath and laid out his clothes – ‘Upstairs.’ Brownlow was, Dietrich hinted, sulking. Coralie had usurped him again, but she was too absorbed by her new occupation to care.

  At six twenty-nine on Tuesday, 20 July, Dietrich closed the ledger with a snap. ‘That was the last picture signed off.’

  ‘What about the ones beside the window?’

  ‘Those I am negotiating to sell on Ottilia’s behalf. She needs cash, her husband being too much of an artist to work for a living. Still, now I know what is missing.’

  Coralie slid down the wall to the floor. Her fingers felt like butcher’s sausages. ‘You mean “stolen”?’

  ‘It’s possible that Ottilia gave some pieces away. She does that – gives things to people to please them.’

  ‘Like giving La Passerinette to Lorienne?’

  ‘I try to make her understand that if you don’t respect what you have, people will take it from you. The more they rob you, the less they value what you are.’

  His voice goes to velvet when he speaks of her, Coralie thought.

  Madame Corvet came in just then, bringing peach tart fresh from the oven, and Dietrich’s next words were for her: ‘Madame, I want the lock to this flat changed, and a double one to replace it. Tonight.’

  The concierge stammered, ‘Without Madame la Baronne’s instruction?’

  Dietrich took a letter from his pocket. ‘Here is her instruction. She gives me carte blanche to do as I see fit here. Do you doubt that I have Madame la Baronne’s best interests at heart?’

  Madame Corvet cast an uncertain glance at the few unpacked pictures, but all she said was, ‘A double lock, as soon as it can be done.’

  They walked back to the hotel. A fine drizzle was falling, the streets filled with a musty sweetness. ‘I love Paris in the rain,’ Coralie murmured.