The Girl Who Dreamed of Paris

by Natalie Meg Evans

  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 London.’

  ‘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.

  ‘I thought you were slumming it. People of your class usually swank around in the members’ enclosure.’

  ‘Neither Ottilia nor I relish being recognised. Now this you must observe . . . ’

  The shop assistant had placed a black felt disc on the marquise’s head. As Coralie watched, she pinched it into a cone while her other hand described a shape in the mirror for the marquise’s benefit. She then made a crown and a partial brim from the fabric, like a sculptress working with clay. She bent so close to her work that her glasses fell down her nose, and when she produced scissors, Coralie’s eyes widened. They stayed wide as blades trimmed inches off the brim.

  Coralie thought, If I tried that, there’d be blood and bits of ear all over the place. The girl pinned up the shallower side of the brim, then stood back, enabling Coralie to see the marquise’s reflection. The old noblewoman had been restored to dignity. Her wrinkled butter-bean face had been given width at the temple, her beaky nose softened. Even her wig seemed less absurd now it was framed in black. To think that a pair of hands and a few snips could work such a change. The girl was a magician.

  ‘I don’t like it.’ The marquise wrenched it off and threw it away.

  ‘Perhaps Madame la Marquise will do me the honour of saying what she does like?’ The girl’s voice was soft. Weary.

  ‘I’m sick of black!’

  ‘But Madame always wishes for black.’

  ‘Madame always wishes for black,’ the old woman echoed, reminding Coralie of a mynah bird in the window of the barber’s shop on the Old Kent Road. ‘That one!’ A twiggy finger pointed to the window. ‘The one that’s all feathers. The faded pink one.’

  Coralie gasped. ‘But that’s the one I want!’

  Dietrich tutted, amused. �
��No more feathers, surely? Ah, too late, Liebchen.’

  The assistant had lifted it from its stand like a sacrificial victim, sighing, ‘Madame la Marquise has never asked for such a colour before.’

  ‘How do you know? How old are you?’

  ‘Twenty-nine, Madame.’

  ‘Well, I’m eighty. My husband died before you were born. Who says widows have to live and die in black?’

  The assistant placed the pink feathers on the marquise’s head.

  ‘She looks like an old broiler hen,’ Coralie moaned quietly.

  Her misery mixed with Dietrich’s chuckles as the marquise pushed herself upright and commanded, ‘Have the bill sent to my country place and box the hat up. I shall wear it to travel in.’

  Opening the door carrying a La Passerinette hatbox proved difficult, and Dietrich got up to help. As the marquise stumped past, he said, ‘Madame, permit me to say that you will look quite ravishing in pink.’ To Coralie’s amazement, the old woman graciously extended her hand for him to kiss.

  As Dietrich sat down, Coralie hissed, ‘Anyone would think you were auditioning for Prince Charming at the Finsbury Park Empire.’ It was out before she could stop herself and the alteration in Dietrich’s expression chilled her. ‘I didn’t mean to say that. Don’t be angry.’

  ‘Then don’t mock me.’

  ‘No. I’m sorry.’

  ‘I do not understand why you say some of the things you do.’

  ‘I’m jealous.’

  ‘Of an old woman? You can be sure she will be ridiculed by everyone who sees her. Does she need your sneers as well?’

  Tears welled with nowhere to go but down her cheeks. ‘I was being rotten. Don’t hate me, Dietrich.’

  He handed over his handkerchief. Her bag was down by her feet somewhere. ‘Understand, Coralie, I will take a great deal of pain for those I care for but I have no tolerance for mockery.’

  ‘So you do care for me?’

  ‘Very much. Now, I shall go and find Lorienne. Perhaps she’s napping. It is a hot day and hot weather ruffles the mind.’

  She closed her eyes as he left. If anyone knew how men hated being teased, she should. How many times had she had a back-swipe at home for some flippant remark? Donal was the exception, taking her jibes in good humour. Or maybe he had minded – she’d never bothered to ask. Oh, Donal. Her last words to him had been so cruel and she’d probably never see him again. It was Dietrich she must concentrate on. He deserved her respect. He could have turned his back on her when she’d hurled herself at him at Victoria Station. She’d never forget the cocktail of disbelief, pity and . . . what? pleasure? with which he’d greeted her.

  *

  On 3 June, just a few minutes short of eleven o’clock, she’d sprinted into Victoria, eyes everywhere, as she tried to locate the Pullman train. No time to go to the Ladies and tidy herself, though she’d spent much of the previous night walking the streets. From Bermondsey Street, she’d crossed the Thames and had slunk around the wharves until the attentions of lone men warned her that she might not survive the night unmolested. She’d gone back south of the river and found sanctuary in the familiar surroundings of Southwark’s Catholic cathedral. There, she’d slept surprisingly well on a hard pew, waking with just enough time to get to Victoria.

  Grabbing a station porter’s arm, she’d gasped, ‘Boat train?’

  The porter indicated the furthest end of the vast railway terminus. ‘Platform eight. The queue’s moving – you’re cutting it fine.’

  She’d hurtled towards the longest line. Was that tall figure at the barrier Dietrich? Belted summer coat, Homburg hat? It had better be. She forced a last effort from her legs. ‘It’s me, Coralie, wait!’ At least she’d remembered to call herself ‘Coralie’.

  She’d thrown herself into his arms, hardly noticing the male attendant staring down a distinctly put-out nose. Dietrich had held her, panting, at arm’s length.

  ‘Like Mid-day Sun, forty miles an hour. Brownlow, give me your ticket. You’re taking a later train.’

  *

  Dietrich hadn’t rejected her, but he might after her performance just now. She’d seen it in his eyes.

  Expecting him to return with a milliner in the style of Miss McCullum, Coralie was astonished when an elegant woman of about twenty-five preceded him into the salon.

  ‘This is Mademoiselle Royer,’ he told her. ‘Privileged friends call her Lorienne.’

  The woman’s hands were alabaster-white against a black linen dress, nails long and polished. Not really milliner’s hands at all. She wore three strands of black pearls around her left wrist, and Coralie saw an echo of Ottilia, but in the negative. Her most extraordinary feature was her platinum-blonde hair – peroxide, buckets of it – though there was nothing of the tart about her as the hair was twisted into an effortless pleat. Deep brown eyes, high cheekbones and a voluptuous mouth completed a beautiful woman. Knows that pouting gets her further than smiling, Coralie judged. With men, anyway.

  Lorienne Royer placed her hip against Dietrich’s leg, but even as she welcomed Coralie to La Passerinette, her words were aimed at him. ‘We can do something with this. A lofty brow and Saxon colouring. Natural straws will suit Mademoiselle de Lirac perfectly.’

  Coralie butted in, ‘I’d rather have pink.’ The brief desire to appease Dietrich had faded. That was half her problem in life. Her resolutions were not colour-fast. They ran in the wash, but damned if she was going to be topped off with a boring bit of straw. If the marquise could rebel at eighty, she could do it at twenty-two.

  Lorienne shook her head. ‘Those are special-occasion hats. Will Mademoiselle please come to a mirror?’

  At the table previously occupied by the marquise, Coralie was confronted with her own face from three angles. She looked away, and saw the assistant with the thick glasses standing outside on the pavement, staring sadly towards her. Or perhaps just staring as she must be too shortsighted to make anything out. As the girl came back inside, a thought flashed through Coralie’s mind: She hates this place.

  ‘Would Mademoiselle de Lirac please look into the mirror?’ A buffed nail brushed Coralie’s chin. ‘So I can take a long look?’ Without breaking her study, Lorienne asked the assistant, ‘Was the marquise in a tolerable mood?’

  ‘No. I’m afraid she was in one of her queer tempers.’

  ‘Did she decide upon her new hat?’

  ‘Yes, Mademoiselle Lorienne. The biretta. The coque in wild-rose pink? Only she called it “calamine”.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Calamine.’

  Coralie yelped as a fingernail dug into her jaw. After a hasty apology, Lorienne turned to the girl. ‘You sold the rose pink biretta to the Marquise de Sainte-Vierge? What a triumph. You’ve excelled yourself. No – don’t say anything, just fetch me straw shells for this customer.’

  Coralie flashed a look of sympathy, but the girl’s head stayed low as she edged past, flinching as Lorienne raised an arm – to shake down her bracelets, as it turned out, not to hit her. Coralie risked turning once more to see if Dietrich had witnessed the moment, but he was staring at the window, or through it, turning a silver key in his fingers. The key had a tag tied to it. She frowned. Why did he have a house key on him when he lived in a hotel?

  ‘You are lucky,’ Lorienne said, after studying Coralie’s reflection for a good five minutes. ‘Most shapes will suit you, so long as we stay away from narrow crowns.’

  ‘No witch’s hats, then?’

  Had that stab at humour been a ball, it would have rolled into a corner.

  ‘The crown of a hat should be as wide as, or wider than, your cheekbones. Yours are the broadest part of your face, and you have a small chin. Too much hat overshadows gamine features. Too narrow will make your face seem lozenge-shaped. You understand?’

  ‘Perfectly. The sort of hat I l
ike is—’

  ‘Your complexion is fair, but there is colour to your cheeks, which is why Violaine will bring straw in shades tending towards grey, not yellow. Yes?’

  No, actually. Coralie’s irritation swelled until she realised that the ‘Yes?’ had been fired towards the doorway, at the assistant, who was waiting with a selection of unblocked straw bodies, known as capelines.

  ‘Shells, I said!’ Lorienne then explained for Coralie’s benefit, ‘She presumes we’ll be blocking from scratch, but that’s not possible as you need your new hats quickly. When your clothes arrive from Javier, you will perhaps come back for hats to complement them, blocked to your precise measurements.’

  Coralie hid her surprise. At Pettrew’s, hats had come in three or four standard sizes, with in-betweens created by varying the thickness of the inner band. This shop must serve wealthy women if bespoke blocks were in use. Lorienne turned to address Dietrich. ‘Mademoiselle de Lirac has an air and style different from other ladies you have brought here, Herr von Elbing.’

  The reply came back instantly. ‘Mademoiselle de Lirac is entirely original. Comparing her to others is like comparing a graceful building to a fine painting. It would miss the point of both.’

  Coralie left with three hats: a Panama, a broad-brimmed sisal and a gypsy bonnet that made her look like a blonde Vivien Leigh, all eyes. She adored them all but she wasn’t going to say so. In La Passerinette, she’d felt like piggy-in-the-middle of a lovers’ tiff. Something existed between Lorienne and Dietrich; this idyllic Paris existence had a serpent in it, after all. The Good Book said you should leave serpents in peace, but she didn’t think she could.

  *

  ‘How do you feel?’

  How did she feel? Enveloped, with Dietrich’s legs wound around her. She had a double heartbeat, or perhaps it was his adding to hers. Where had it come from, their ferocious passion? On leaving La Passerinette, they’d lunched in a restaurant close by, and he’d been preoccupied. She’d worried she’d let him down again by having the wrong-shaped head, or asking for pink hats too often. Or perhaps her ‘Prince Charming’ reference rankled still. So, to return to the hotel and be flung on the bed, her clothes almost torn off, had been briefly stupefying. And then the clocks had stopped as she turned into the woman Dietrich seemed to want her to be – a creature of claws, teeth and uninhibited appetite. Sometimes dominant, sometimes yielding, discovering the power of mastery when it came to love. It was nothing to do with strength. It was in the mind, and that made it intoxicating. Best of all, there would be a next time, and a next time.