The Dress Thief

by Natalie Meg Evans

  Bonnet brandished his sticky paintbrush at her. He was no taller than Alix and his full beard gave the impression he had no neck. He wore serge overalls, and a collarless shirt covered by a moth-eaten sweater, and – with his face lined through years spent painting in the hills of Alsace and in the blistering fields of Provence – he looked the consummate peasant-turned-artist. On Montmartre his appearance gave him status; anywhere else he’d be moved on. ‘It’s dead rabbit,’ he said morosely, ‘I paid for best-quality rabbit size and it shouldn’t smell, not if it’s made properly. People tell me all the time my work stinks –’ he shook his head at the glistening canvas – ‘now it will forever. So. Nice long lunch with your boyfriend, michou?’ His grin sent wrinkles speeding out of his beard.

  ‘Paul’s not my boyfriend. I’m sure I told you.’ But she was smiling. Bonnet was balm to tumbled spirits. He brewed wonderful coffee, and when it got really cold he’d add a drop of Kirsch, the cherry liqueur of Alsace. ‘You should take that size back, demand compensation, say it gave your model a fainting fit.’

  ‘Don’t faint,’ Bonnet took up his stance at a second easel. ‘If I have to wheel you home in a barrow, your grandmother will ask questions. She didn’t bring you to Paris to fall among my sort, not after that expensive lady’s education the Comte de Charembourg gave you.’

  ‘How do you know about him?’

  Bonnet gave a conspiratorial wink. ‘I am a man who knows everything and everybody. One day I will tell you stories of the comte that will make your eyebrows fly off. Allons, let’s work.’

  Alix slipped off her wrap and settled into her pose. It was a modest one, as modest as a naked pose can be. She sat tall because tomorrow she’d have to enter one of the smartest buildings in Paris and not blush, stammer or run away.

  *

  ‘Tomorrow’ – 13th March – came racing in like a riptide. After a night of troubled dreams, Alix was outside Maison Javier, a vast building filling the angle between Rue de la Trémoille and Rue du Boccador. The nearby Avenues Montaigne and Champs-Elysées provided background traffic noise, but Trémoille itself was empty but for a couple of taxis and a silver-blue saloon, chauffeur at the wheel. Alix was glad of it. The last thing she wanted right now was an audience.

  She reread Paul’s note, checking she was at the right location. Of course she was. A brass plate beside a double-height door announced ‘Javier’. She was just reaching to open the door when the jooshing sound of a well-tuned engine made her turn. A Peugeot the colour of vintage wine pulled up on the opposite pavement. Its driver got out, a young man wearing a sharp jacket, wide-leg trousers and a Homburg hat with a deep gutter crown, set at a rakish angle. He flicked back his cuffs, pulled his hat an inch lower, unfolded a newspaper and leaned casually against his car bonnet. He looked in Alix’s direction and she felt his practised appraisal – felt him taking in her hair, her figure and the battered wicker basket she carried. His glance intruded like a photographer’s lens. Alix fumbled at the door of Maison Javier and, in doing so, dropped her basket. A pair of newspaper-wrapped fish flopped out, followed by the fruit and vegetables she’d bought that morning at the market. She rammed them back in the basket and a soft laugh added to her discomfort. She threw the Peugeot driver an angry glare. He wasn’t much older than she was, she could see, but he acted as if he owned the world. Taking a breath, she entered Maison Javier and found herself staring into a paved court broad enough for a horse and carriage to have turned in former times. Crossing the court, she found another door. She pushed that and then she was stepping into opulence, into an interior finer than any she’d seen before.

  Until forty minutes ago she’d fully intended to miss this interview. Tumbling out of bed that morning, she’d reached for a well-worn dress and headed to the market for the weekend’s shopping. She’d been on Rue Mouffetard, buying those fish, when a church bell struck eleven. Paris was full of churches, full of bells, so why this one should sound like the voice of Providence she’d never know. But each knell told her she was throwing away her best chance to get what she wanted in life. Basket bumping, she’d hurtled to the nearest Métro.

  Javier’s vestibule smelled sweetly of orange-flower oil, but her basket was introducing a less pleasant note. The fish ought to be at home, on ice. She could have left the basket in the street, but if it got stolen … another thing to explain to Mémé.

  At least it was Saturday. The ateliers – the workrooms – would be running white hot, dozens of sewing women bent over their work as they strove to complete orders for the coming Easter holidays. The wealthy ladies who would benefit from all that labour were most likely at home, feet up, or at their country properties. It explained the silence on this, the ground floor and why, as she climbed a stately staircase, the sounds of activity became clearer. She couldn’t quite locate where they came from, though, which added to the feeling of unreality.

  She reached an area carpeted in honey-gold, dominated by a desk of lacquered maple. Here she gave her name to a receptionist. ‘I have an appointment.’

  The receptionist extended a hand like a traffic policeman. ‘You should not have come up these stairs.’ She glared at Alix’s bare legs, then at the basket. ‘We have a separate entrance for trade.’

  ‘My appointment is with the première, Mme Frankel.’

  After a hostile stare, the girl opened a diary, flicked a page and muttered, ‘Gow-ère.’ She frowned and pointed to a seat in a corner. ‘Wait there. I will fetch the directrice.’

  ‘My appointment is with—’

  The receptionist cut her short. ‘The directrice meets everybody who comes through these doors.’ Implying there was no more to discuss, she slid a panel aside in a silk-papered wall and left.

  Alix sighed. If that conversation was anything to go by, she’d soon be shooed out with a stick. But if she did leave, she’d never find the courage to return. So she sat on her hands and tried to ignore the whiff of fish. To her right was an archway hung with near-transparent drapes. Beyond, she could make out gilt chairs and a lake of carpet. It must be the salon where the collections were shown every afternoon to the cream of Parisian society. To that elite band of women who bought ten-thousand-franc dresses with as much nonchalance as Alix bought carrots. The salon was the designer’s domain, ruled over by a directrice who was queen of the sales ladies and also in charge of the girls who modelled the clothes. These model girls were called mannequins because, once upon a time, clothes had been displayed on wooden dummies. Then Worth, the first grand couturier, had grown impatient of bodies that couldn’t move and hired beautiful girls instead. But the name had stuck. Mannequins were a species apart, with their striking figures and perfect poise. They ranked among the most courted women in Paris and graced the pages of top magazines. They were paid ‘in flowers and compliments’, Mémé had once told her. ‘And kept by their lovers.’

  She could see people moving about behind the drapes. Heavens – they were coming this way. Before she could get off her seat, a woman pushed through the curtain. She wore an hourglass suit, the sort called a tailleur or ‘tailor-made’, her blonde hair rolled in a chignon. Seeing Alix, she gave a start of high-bred astonishment. She was followed by an older female encased in black velvet. This one shot Alix a rancid look, demanding, ‘Who might you be?’

  Alix stammered her name and heard the blonde lady give a quick intake of breath. No chance to dissect the meaning of that – both women had already proceeded down the stairs. The black-velvet female was back minutes later, however, pointing at Alix’s basket and asking in scathing tones, ‘What is that?’

  As Alix blundered through an explanation, the receptionist returned, calling in relief. ‘Mlle Lilliane! I was trying to find you. This young woman has an appointment –’ She indicated Alix, biting her lip as her colleague enquired in a voice of disgust, ‘You left her in full view because … ?’

  ‘Because I went to find you. I thought you would wish to see her first.’

  ‘I do not wish
to see her at all. Need I inform you that the lady I escorted to her car just now was the wife of the most esteemed Comte de Charembourg? Mme la Comtesse does not expect to trip over riff-raff and their baskets.’

  Alix had jolted at the name. The Comtesse de Charembourg – that was the lady in the flawless suit? Mémé had spoken of Rhona de Charembourg a few times, and with so little warmth Alix had imagined her to be one of those booming, upper-class Englishwomen who splashed you as they drove past in their cars. Rhona de Charembourg might well do that, but she was no tweedy frump. Actually she could have manifested fully formed from the pages of Vogue. But wait … for the comtesse to be here, her husband must also be in Paris, surely? How odd, to discover it so soon after Bonnet had mentioned the comte’s name in passing. A strange coincidence.

  Jean-Yves, Comte de Charembourg, had fought in the same regiment as Alix’s father. On her father’s death, he’d stepped forward and, as Bonnet had put it, paid for her to have a lady’s education. Alix had never asked if the comte’s wife was party to this generosity. Belatedly translating the woman’s freezing demeanour, Alix answered the question – Rhona de Charembourg must have been as shocked as Alix herself at this meeting. If she knew of the arrangement that made Alix her husband’s unofficial ward, she liked it not one bit.

  Though really there was no cause for resentment. Alix loved the comte as she might a kindly uncle, but she’d seen relatively little of him over the years. He’d written to her each birthday, long, amusing letters, and visited her at school perhaps once a year. During holidays, when they were both in London, he’d occasionally picked her up in a nippy Morgan three-wheeler and taken her to dine in a place by the Thames. As a young girl, she’d fantasised that he might adopt her, but there’d always been Mémé to shrink fantasy to its proper proportion –

  ‘He has daughters of his own to worry about. You think he wants you plucking at his sleeve, Aliki?’ According to Mémé, the comte sprinkled crumbs from his table out of a combination of kindness and duty. ‘Army officers take care of their men, and in your father’s case, there was special reason for the comte to look after you. Your father saved his life when they were under fire. But that doesn’t mean he thinks of you in any special way.’

  Alix knew differently. The comte did care. He couldn’t fake that smile, nor the twinkle in his eye. She missed his company and had feared that by coming to Paris she’d put herself outside his reach. What a miracle if he should be here! Though if they met, it would be another thing to hide from her grandmother.

  The comte and Mémé both originated from Kirchwiller in Alsace and had known each other before the war and the battle that had given John Gower the chance to save his captain’s life. But Mémé had come from the disagreeable-sounding Impasse Demi-Jour in the Jewish quarter, while de Charembourg had been born in the castle on the hill, so they hadn’t met socially. Their other bond had been Alfred Lutzman – the comte had admired his work and had bought some of his canvasses.

  Would he take her out to dine one evening in Paris then? It was unlikely the comtesse would mention seeing her, but Alix knew she could look up his telephone number at work. Would she dare call him to say hello?

  Meanwhile, Mlle Lilliane was inspecting Alix’s dress, white poplin dotted with pink roses, its skirt crumpled by Métro seats. Her gaze travelled downward to discover bare feet in rope-soled shoes. She shuddered. ‘Get out.’

  Alix pulled herself tall. The school the comte had selected for her, where she’d remained until her eighteenth birthday, had taught her one abiding skill: dignity in the face of humiliation. Kingswood Place had catered to the daughters of the English upper-middle classes, the comte having put her there rather than hurl her into the highest ranks of society. He’d explained, ‘Snobbery is a blood sport in England.’

  He couldn’t have realised that the most acute snobbery is found in the ‘nearly’ ranks. Alix, obscure, parentless, paid for, had been bait for the stockbrokers’ daughters. At best a museum exhibit, her origins much discussed but never decoded.

  Those Parents’ Days, when Mémé would bring baskets of pretzels and almond biscuits for the friends she fondly imagined Alix had made and would invariably be mistaken for somebody’s servant, would never fade from Alix’s memory. When she got nervous, Mémé would revert to Yiddish, and the girls – and some parents – would laugh behind their hands.

  Alix’s voice shook as she told the directrice, ‘I have an interview. I apologise for my basket and for the fish. They accompanied me here but we’re not acquainted.’

  ‘Who arranged this supposed interview?’

  ‘Mme Shone.’ This was shaky ground. She only had Paul’s say-so regarding Mme Shone’s identity. Or indeed her existence. Alix looked towards the salon to avoid the directrice’s eye. ‘She thinks I have what it takes to work here.’

  Mlle Lilliane blared, ‘What it takes? Have you any idea “what it takes” to wear the clothes M. Javier creates?’

  Alix realised her glance had been misinterpreted. Good lord, she wasn’t putting herself forward as a mannequin. She wanted to make clothes, not parade them. As she tried to explain, Mlle Lilliane launched into a tirade, pausing only when a dark-haired man emerged from the salon.

  ‘Ah, Mademoiselle, I thought I heard your voice. Do I interrupt some difficulty?’ The newcomer spoke with a foreign lilt. His skin was very brown above his white collar.

  A tailor, Alix guessed, seeing the tape measure draped over the shoulder of his immaculate jacket. Trained in a men’s establishment, employed to produce suits like the one the Comtesse de Charembourg was wearing. Late fifties, anything but handsome, but Alix warmed instantly to the gentleness of his eyes. Under his jacket he wore an ivory waistcoat embroidered with one perfect peacock eye.

  ‘Was Mme la Comtesse unhappy with her fitting? I hope not, as her new gown is chief guest at her next dinner party.’ The man coughed because Mlle Lilliane was still muttering in Alix’s direction. ‘Is this young person from Milady’s household?’

  Mlle Lilliane barked, ‘She’s nobody, except she imagines she has the makings of a mannequin. I have been striving to remove the notion. Join me in telling her that to be a house mannequin at Javier—’

  The man politely gestured for silence. He turned to Alix. ‘Are you Mlle Gower?’

  Alix gulped. ‘Yes, Monsieur.’

  ‘Then I must offer explanation. My première has not forgotten you but she is embroiled elsewhere. She sends apologies –’

  Disappointment flooded Alix. She was just beginning to believe that she might actually like working here.

  ‘– and asked me to see you instead. It is Mme Shone who recommends you?’

  ‘Yes, Mme Shone, that’s right. And I don’t want to be a mannequin. That’s not why I came.’

  ‘We will go to my room and untangle the knots,’ he said, turning. When Alix made to follow him, he wagged a finger towards the floor by her feet. ‘I think this fellow should come too.’

  Her basket. Blushing, she grabbed the handle and followed the tailor through doors into a stairwell, cringing as Mlle Lilliane’s voice rang out –

  ‘On top of everything else, Monsieur, she smells.’

  *

  ‘Will you permit me to ask who you are, Monsieur? Are you really just a tailor?’

  ‘Just a tailor?’ He indicated she should take a seat at a cutting table – bare but for a bowl of lush pink roses the size of cabbages. ‘To be a tailor is to be the generalissimo of couture. Take a minute, get your breath.’

  They’d come briskly through a warren of corridors, then ridden a hydraulic lift to the top of the building. What he’d described as ‘his room’ turned out to be the whole top floor. From her seat, Alix could stare up into a lantern skylight and see clouds forming and massing. One side of the room overlooked Rue de la Trémoille, and on the courtyard side stood an army of figurines wearing ‘toiles’ of filmy muslin. Toiles were the early stages of couture clothes. Alix marvelled at bouffant sleeves, pl
unging necks and hems scrunched like rings of meringue. Evening gowns in the making.

  Mlle Lilliane stormed in after them, planting herself between Alix and the figurines. ‘Does it occur to you, Monsieur, that she might be a spy from another house?’

  Shrugging, ‘Monsieur’ invited the directrice to stay if she wished – ‘But no more crossness. Angry people give me pains here.’ The tailor patted his stomach. ‘Well, petite,’ he invited, ‘you wish to be an employee of Javier? What is your skill?’

  ‘Um …’ Alix had rehearsed a speech on the Métro, but suddenly couldn’t remember it. ‘I – I learned to sew at school and from Mémé – I mean, my grandmother. After I left school, I worked in the ladies’ made-to-measure department of a London store, sometimes making alterations, sometimes as a fitter.’

  ‘A fitter? What did that teach you, Mademoiselle?’

  ‘That ladies whose waist measurement is thirty-six inches always think the fitter’s tape measure is wrong.’

  The man smacked his table in delight. ‘Excellent. What else has life taught you?’

  ‘Erm … I do fine stitching, every sort of seam and buttonhole and every embroidery stitch. I’ve learned shadow work, open threadwork, smocking, quilting … um … I can make lace –’ adding for truth’s sake – ‘but not very well. I can stitch broderie anglaise and blackwork.’

  ‘Ah, blackwork is a good thing to say to me. Blackwork is a thing of joy for a Spaniard. Have you brought me samples?’

  ‘No, I’m sorry.’ She’d brought fish instead.

  Mlle Lilliane crowed, ‘How do we know she isn’t lying?’

  ‘Because Mme Shone sent her. Petite, show me your hands.’

  Alix held them out. Mlle Lilliane shrieked, ‘Look at her nails! Imagine those hands touching one of your gowns.’

  Your gowns … ? A pulse began working behind Alix’s ear.