The Milliner's Secret

by Natalie Meg Evans

  CHAPTER 9

  Having spent the Monday of the August bank holiday failing to get kitchen work, Coralie rose the following morning ready to give millinery another stab. Though her interview with Henriette Junot had misfired, the image of a plain woman transformed by pink roses excited her. She did have something to offer. ‘The only other thing I’m any good at is love-making,’ she told the muscular tomcat winding himself around her ankles, mewing for a share of the milk she was boiling for cocoa. ‘But that’s no profession for a girl who still has dreams.’

  Clean sheets and privacy had given her the sweetest night’s sleep she’d had in days. But, as she put the cocoa to her lips, a bilious wave broke over her. In the bathroom, heaving from an empty stomach, she flung out a proposition to any of the Fates who might be listening: ‘Give me a job and I’ll never be idle again. I’ll be the most loving mother in the world too. I promise, I promise.’

  On boulevard de la Madeleine, the sun beat against the back of her neck. Why had she not thought of trying at La Passerinette before?

  Because it hurt to come back as Dietrich’s discarded mistress.

  But back she was, and glad to see hats on display rather than drawn blinds. Nearly every other milliner’s was shut – most of them for the rest of the summer. Really, she couldn’t have timed her unemployment worse.

  Lorienne Royer’s hats had not moved on in style since Coralie’s visit in June, but instead of pink, this time it was a crescendo of peach tones. Recalling her morning there with Dietrich, Coralie suspected the display was a ruse to entice customers in. Once inside, you got whatever Lorienne had available. Coralie saw no sign of activity.

  ‘I’d stir things up, if the place were mine,’ she muttered. She hesitated at the door, remembering Lorienne’s sharp nails and the cringing assistant, Violaine. Could she risk taking a job here, in her condition? Touching her stomach, sore from retching, she reminded herself that her condition was precisely why she was about to do this. Lorienne Royer shouldn’t scare her, anyway. When it came to bullies, hadn’t she worked with the best? She pushed the door – and found it locked. Her eye fell on a card propped in the window:

  La Passerinette is closed for August.

  Work-in-progress will be honoured.

  Please telephone to arrange collection.

  Coralie poured out her exasperation in oaths straight from the mouth of Jac Masson – until the sound of a window being opened made her look up. A light voice called down, ‘We are closed. Have you come to pick up a hat?’’

  Dazzled by the sun-baked walls of a building five storeys high, it was a moment before Coralie recognised Violaine. The girl was also blinking – like an animal coming out of hibernation. She wasn’t wearing her spectacles.

  I’ve woken her up, Coralie thought. At half past eleven on a summer morning! ‘I was hoping to speak with Lorienne. I want a job.’

  Violaine’s reply was lost in the rumble of a passing bus. Boulevard de la Madeleine was one of the grand boulevards of Paris and always noisy – but not quite noisy enough to disguise the sound of a window being shut.

  ‘And the same to you,’ Coralie tossed upwards. Deflated, she looked towards the Madeleine. The church would be cool, and she could rest and put in a prayer, since Fate clearly wasn’t coming up with the goods. All she wanted was a chance. One little chink of luck. She was thirty strides away when she heard her name being called. Turning, she saw Violaine on the pavement, waving. Coralie hurried back. The girl had come out of a street door the same colour as the stone surrounding it. It must be the way into the flats above the salon.

  ‘Mademoiselle Royer isn’t here,’ Violaine explained, making a belated effort to smooth her rumpled clothes. ‘She’s gone to Deauville – you know, by the sea?’ A heavy sigh implied, All right for some.

  ‘Can you employ me?’

  Violaine stepped close to Coralie, almost too close. ‘Not unless you’re offering your services for free . . . could you? It would be excellent experience.’ She’d put on her glasses on the way out of her flat, but still seemed to be struggling to focus. It was like meeting somebody’s gaze under water.

  Coralie shook her head. ‘I already have experience. I need a salary.’

  ‘Of course.’ Violaine’s face crumpled as if she’d just seen the last life belt whisked away. ‘Only, ‘I’ve worked the last two nights straight. I must have fallen asleep. I take work up to my flat because the telephone never stops ringing in the salon.’

  There were red marks on Violaine’s knuckles, as if she’d scalded herself. Blocking with hot kettles while exhausted, Coralie thought. Left on her own while everyone else goes on holiday. She wished she could help. ‘I’m truly sorry.’

  Violaine shrugged. ‘Why don’t you try Printemps on boulevard Haussmann? They might be hiring.’

  It crossed Coralie’s mind to invite Violaine to have lunch somewhere, but thrift intervened. Oranges and cheese were waiting for her at Teddy’s flat on rue de Seine. Thanking Violaine, Coralie walked away, cutting across place de la Madeleine. She was halfway down rue Royale when her mental map of Paris reasserted itself. This was the wrong direction for boulevard Haussmann. Wiping perspiration from her forehead, she wondered if she had the energy to turn around. Printemps this afternoon, maybe? After she’d rested and changed.

  As she dithered, she noticed two smartly dressed ladies on the opposite side of the road trying to enter Henriette Junot’s salon. They’d opened the door but were clearly too well-bred to push through the press of women already inside. Were the staff giving away free hats?

  Henriette’s disdainful treatment of her still burned, but Coralie nevertheless went to the kerb and waited for a break in the traffic. Henriette would be away on holiday by now, and it would be good to nip in and thank Amélie Ginsler, the vendeuse, who had been so helpful to her. As she darted across the road, a splash of colour in Henriette’s window drew her eye. A single marotte stood in the window in a lake of pink rose petals. It wore an asymmetrical black beret, with four Zéphirine Drouhin roses falling forward over its brow.

  Fury surged through Coralie.

  Employing the elbow tactics she’d used at Epsom racecourse, Coralie drilled through the crowd until she saw Henriette herself, surrounded by women in summer suits, all talking at once. So, the vacation had been cancelled – or had that just been a ruse to fob Coralie off? The moment the noise died down, she’d take Madame Junot in a hard grip, march her to the window and demand an explanation for the rose beret. The woman had made her lick the floor in front of a fourteen-year-old workhand, turfed her out, then stolen her design.

  Somebody pinched her shoulder. She swung round and there was Amélie Ginsler, looking stricken. Coralie mouthed, ‘What’s going on?’

  Drawing her to the edge of the room, Amélie said, ‘The couturier Javier, for whom we provide millinery? His new collection was plagiarised the day you came here. His entire autumn–winter line was pre-sold to New York. The poor man scrapped the whole thing and locked himself away. It’s a disaster!’

  Amélie didn’t have to explain. A similar thing had happened at Pettrew’s when a London department store had gone to the wall. A season’s orders, cancelled overnight. A stockroom full of materials that must be paid for. Girls on the payroll with nothing to do. Coralie looked at the mob encircling Henriette. ‘Angry customers?’

  ‘Gossip-mongers. They want the inside story, because nobody at Javier will say a thing.’ Henriette was on the brink of a nervous breakdown, Amélie added. She had been minutes from leaving for her holiday, her new lover waiting in the taxi, but now, instead of spending September at a lakeside château in Ariège, she had the prospect of saving her business from total disaster.

  Coralie sized up the situation. Sized up Henriette, and saw a woman drowning. She felt no sympathy, only a surge of excitement. You prayed for a chance, she told herself, and here it is. Holding back until the salon had almost emptied, the flock gone elsewhere to feed, she marched up to Henr
iette. ‘You’re in a right mess but I’ve got what you haven’t – energy and an empty diary. Give me the reins for a month and I’ll sort your business out for you.’

  Henriette curled her lip. ‘I need somebody with talent and business brains.’

  Wordlessly, Coralie went to the window and scooped up the Zéphirine beret. ‘You clearly think I have talent. As for brains, I’m a direct descendant of the cleverest financier in history, the Duc de Lirac.’

  ‘Never heard of him.’

  Coralie assumed a look of astonishment. ‘Never heard of the man who saved Napoleon the Third from bankruptcy? Not only did my ancestor rescue his finances, he made him plant trees on every boulevard in Paris as a thank-you. Next time you find yourself strolling in the shade, look up and thank the Duc de Lirac. So. Deal?’

  Coralie had no illusions as to why Henriette accepted her offer. The woman had been ready to close her doors, throw the keys into the Seine. A half-convincing story was all she’d needed. And, as Coralie quickly discovered, the salon ran very well without Henriette. Amélie Ginsler held the front-of-house together. Madame Zénon, the Greek-born première, ran the production side, with the help of talented deputies.

  For the first few days, Coralie did little more than wander around, fearful she’d bitten off too much. But ambition rescued her. Why not use what Henriette had turned her back on to secure her own future and that of her unborn child? Fate had handed her a salon: she would make her name.

  Some fifty models had been made for Javier’s collection and Coralie sold them first. Not in the shop, because there was the question of who exactly owned the designs: at the Expo, still in full flow on the banks of the Seine. On her instruction, Amélie and Madame Zénon selected ten of the most attractive, confident salon assistants and workroom midinettes and Coralie sent them out to mingle with the tourists, making eye-contact, selling hats directly off their heads. Those model-hats ran out within hours and the workrooms went into full production to make more. Cash flowed in and the amiable accountant, Monsieur Moulin, rubbed his hands in pleasure.

  ‘I was deeply involved in retail in London,’ Coralie explained to him, neglecting to add that she’d picked up her technique in Bermondsey’s fruit and vegetable market. You didn’t need to be a genius to see that the barrow-boys who cried their wares the loudest always sold out first.

  September arrived and a tanned Teddy Clisson came home. Finding Voltaire healthy and Coralie busy and radiant, he invited her to stay a week or two more. ‘I have so many traveller’s tales, I need an audience.’ Studying her waistline, he asked, ‘Are you really expecting, or was it a hoax to invoke my pity? I see no signs of a baby.’

  ‘Believe me, there’s a baby.’ She’d been disguising her swelling shape under loose blouses belted at the hip. Teddy apart, only Madame Zénon and Amélie so far knew of her condition. Give it a few weeks, nothing would hide her bump. ‘I shall find a place of my own,’ she promised him. ‘I can’t stay here – people will start gossiping about us.’

  ‘What fun.’ He handed her a box containing a watch of filigree silver with a black enamel bracelet. ‘For being a friend to Voltaire. No, I don’t need to be hugged.’ He became businesslike. ‘My landlord always has property to rent along rue de Seine, if you aren’t fussy about airy views or reliable lifts. He’s quite reasonable.’

  Within days, they had found her a place a few strides away towards the river end of the street. It was on the top floor of a very old house, and had no lift, but Coralie took it. The building was only three storeys high, and she reckoned that going up and down with a baby in a basket would keep her trim.

  Henriette Junot’s 1937 autumn–winter line launched on 9 September. Henriette travelled up from her rented château to preside, bringing her lover – the two of them posing in the new models, giggling like schoolgirls. She then spent a week upsetting Coralie’s work regime, sacking juniors and getting on everybody’s nerves. The day she left, Coralie felt a silent cheer run through the building.

  ‘When she’s in love,’ Madame Zénon confided, ‘she doesn’t give a fig for her business. But when the break-up comes, she is like a mother bear robbed of her cub.’ The première dropped her gaze to Coralie’s midriff, hidden under a pleated tunic. ‘I hope you’re putting a little money aside. Madame may have female lovers, but it does not follow that she likes women. You understand?’

  ‘I’m saving like mad.’ Coralie was also racing to build up a portfolio of designs and to amass the experience that would allow her to open a salon of her own. All she needed was for Henriette to stay seven hundred kilometres away for the next few months – oh, and not discover that Coralie was pregnant. The vile sickness had stopped, thank goodness, and the baby must be small, because Coralie could still get into her skirts with elastic loops attached to the buttons. But all secrets come out in the end.

  One mid-October afternoon Coralie was watching Madame Zénon sketch the profile of a hat they were designing together when she realised that one of the petites-mains – a millinery assistant – was staring at her side-on, a shocked look in her eye. Coralie quickly pulled her stomach in but later she was aware of staff members whispering behind their hands.

  Right, she thought. Time to face the guns. She called an evening meeting, at which she informed a crowded salon that she was due to give birth in February. Ignoring the gasps and whispers, she injected a bit of humour: ‘From now on, I won’t be running about the place and I’ll be taking the stairs two at a time, not three.’

  ‘Does Madame know?’ asked one of the older secondes. She was one of the few people Coralie disliked there, as she was known to spy for Henriette.

  ‘Of course,’ Coralie lied cheerfully. ‘She’s going to be godmother. Meeting dismissed.’ Give me Christmas and one more season, she prayed that night in her poky bedroom. If her dates were right, she could squeeze out a spring–summer collection in early February before she went into labour.

  November answered her prayers, though in the form of disturbing news. Henriette was ill. A cold caught while bathing in the lake beside her château had gone to her lungs. Pneumonia, pleurisy, blood on her pillow. It was unlikely, she informed Madame Zénon and Coralie in a shaky letter, that she’d be back for Christmas. She trusted them to shepherd her business through this vital season.

  Of course, with Henriette, ‘trust’ went only so far.

  Friday, 5 November, was stormy. In the salon, arranging ivy and Christmas roses on the display plinth, Coralie contemplated an unpleasant journey home. She shivered as hail pelted the window. Her flat had a fireplace, but she had nobody to make a blaze for her. At the counter, Amélie was writing up the day’s sales, also in no rush to face the weather. The door crashed open.

  Assuming the wind had forced it and anxious for the glass, Coralie ran to lock it, ivy trailing from her hand. Colliding with the man who stepped in from the darkness, she managed to drape it over his shoulder. He plucked it off, laughing. Deep, black eyes, swarthy colouring and a thick moustache lent him the air of a brigand. Coralie reversed back to the display table, and picked up her scissors.

  Amélie, however, was all smiles. ‘Monsieur Cazaubon, how nice to see you! Have you brought news of Madame Junot?’

  ‘I’m just back from seeing her.’ The stranger kissed Amélie on both cheeks, then looked sideways at Coralie. ‘I left Henriette slightly improved but, I’m afraid, very unhappy. Her friend has left her.’

  ‘That’s a shame,’ said Amélie, though her voice held little surprise.

  ‘I wanted to take her to our parents at Céret, which is only ten kilometres from the Château de Jarrat, where she’s staying, but she wouldn’t agree. So I appointed a pair of nurses to look after her and I hope to God they don’t strangle her.’ The man laughed at Amélie’s pursed lips. ‘Come on. My sister is difficult enough when she is in health, we all know it. When she is ill – I would strangle her!’

  He spoke fast, almost too fast for Coralie to keep up, and with the accent
and rolling rs of a southerner. Cazaubon . . . Was this really Henriette’s brother? He looked more Spanish than French, but perhaps there was an explanation for that. Henriette, she knew, had taken the name ‘Junot’ to distance herself from her roots, which lay in French Catalonia. Whoever he was, he must have come on foot from the Métro because his hair glittered and he’d left wet prints on the carpet. He caught her disapproval. ‘You are Mademoiselle de Lirac.’

  Coralie folded her arms. ‘I think I know who you are.’

  He bowed. ‘The apple of Henriette’s eye.’

  Yes, and I’ll stake my new watch you’ve been sent to check me over. Her heart bumped, and it wasn’t just anxiety. For the past four months, the only males in her life had been Teddy Clisson, the accountant, Monsieur Moulin, and Voltaire. Cazaubon’s stocky masculinity, the teasing gleam in his eye, promised a taste of something richer. There will be others, one way or another. She blushed.

  ‘So, is it true, Mademoiselle?’

  ‘Is what true?’

  He made an apologetic gesture. ‘One of the old cats upstairs wrote to my sister that you are in the family way and –’ he whispered theatrically ‘– unmarried.’

  Coralie held his gaze, knowing instinctively that he was searching for weakness. Moving her Christmas greenery to one side, she allowed Cazaubon an eyeful of her shape. ‘One baby and no ring.’ She presented her left hand. ‘Have a proper look.’

  He did. When he met her eye again, the gleam had sharpened. ‘Tell me, are you eating for two?’

  ‘What are you, a doctor?’

  ‘A civil engineer. Because if you are, I’d like to take both of you out to dinner.’

  Laughter jumped from Coralie’s throat. Astonishment colliding with relief. Whatever this man wanted of her, it wasn’t her immediate downfall.