The Dress Thief

by Natalie Meg Evans

‘He made me count to fifty.’

  ‘And you’ve blood on your face. Oh dear, your flowers. Mademoiselle, what happened?’

  His concern made her cry harder and, perversely, hate him. What she could see of him, which at the moment was just boots and trouser hems. She raised a hand and he helped her to her feet. He was tall and intimidating in a tan fedora hat and trench coat, crumpled and unbuttoned. Her blurred vision told her he was older than Paul, younger than the comte, and a different species from Bonnet. He had a nice voice but she wished he’d go away.

  ‘You have to find the comte, you say. Which comte?’

  ‘I don’t know … I mean, I don’t know where he is. He went home, and I can’t go there.’

  ‘Ah. Then how about a taxi to your home? I don’t have my own car here, I’m afraid.’

  Her knees gave way, shock belatedly rolling in.

  ‘Come and sit down.’ The man supported her a few steps and unlocked the front door of the house adjoining Bonnet’s. He took her into a hall and helped her to a chair, first removing a pile of musical scores from its seat. ‘Your parents live where … ?’

  ‘Nowhere. My grandmother … we live –’ she paused blankly – she couldn’t remember where she lived. All she could call to mind was the brown door of their old house in Charlotte Road, Wandsworth. ‘I’ve lost my memory.’

  ‘Tell you what, we’ll go into Mme Konstantiva’s sitting room. Give me your weight.’

  ‘About eight-and-a-half stone.’

  ‘I meant, lean on me.’

  This room was heavy with velour furnishings and dominated by an upright piano. Alix noticed dance figurines on the bookcase, and photographs of ballerinas with kohl around their eyes. She wasn’t in any state to be curious, however. When the man helped her to an easy chair, she slumped down into it, then started in shock as a cat leaped on to her lap.

  ‘I believe his name is Percy and my new landlady borrows this property from him. Here –’ the man took a shawl from the back of the armchair – ‘I’ll put this between you and his wretched paws. Or you can chuck him off. He ruined my one pair of trousers in the time it took me to drink a cup of tea so I’m not his best friend, but he’s a harmless fellow.’ As the stranger tucked the shawl over her knees, Alix smelled his hair. Kitchen soap. Clearly he was poor. Probably a poet. Bonnet always said that if a painter ever wanted to feel sorry for somebody, he should go out drinking with a poet.

  ‘I’m going to make tea for you. My landlady’s out, so I’ll have to search for tea leaves and work out how to light the stove.’ He left her and a moment later she heard a tap running and the striking of a match. He came back some minutes later with a tray holding a teapot with a knitted cosy, eyelid-thin china, milk jug and sugar bowl. He’d shed his coat, and even in her distress Alix couldn’t help but make an audit of his clothes: very loose trousers belted around the middle, cat-claw damage apparent; dark-blue jersey rubbed thin at the elbows, a soft collar just visible above its crew neck. His boots had once been good quality – he’d walked or laboured recently, she decided, or maybe been in a fight. There were shadows around his eyes and fading grazes on his chin.

  He laid out two cups. ‘Milk in first?’

  ‘I – I don’t know.’

  ‘And who cares? Sugar, lots, under the circumstances.’

  When she took a teacup from him, it rattled and he quickly rescued it and drew up a side table for them both. ‘Take your time.’

  ‘You were going out,’ she said, ‘and I’ve stopped you.’

  ‘I was going to work, but it’ll keep.’ He smiled and two things dawned on her: without realising it, they’d been speaking English from the outset, and she knew his voice.

  *

  Had they met? He had a strong face, a straight nose – dark hair, dark brows and eyes of ink blue. No, they hadn’t met. She’d have remembered.

  He reached for her teacup once more, minus saucer, and held it out to her. ‘Drink it down – England’s secret weapon. Able to tell me what happened?’

  She looked at her flowers, still clutched in her hand, necks broken. She ran her fingers through her hair. ‘I was at Bonnet’s – the artist?’

  ‘Fellow next door? We had a conversation earlier. He called here, wanting to borrow fuel for his spirit stove.’ He switched suddenly into French. ‘From his breath, I did wonder if he’d drunk his own supply for breakfast. But I’m being unfair. Is he a relation?’

  ‘No, I just sit for him sometimes. I thought we had a session today … but sometimes he forgets. I left him a note and a man came up behind me and rammed me against the door. Chopped off my hair.’ She indicated the damage. ‘He had a horrible voice, like a crackly radio.’

  ‘Hmm … deliberately distorted, you mean? So perhaps he thought you’d know him?’

  She stared. How could she know such a brute? ‘He threatened to come back and hurt me.’ She touched the flesh under her eye where the knife had rested. Tears ran over her fingers, into her teacup and on to Percy, his ginger coat readily absorbing them.

  ‘Really you should call the police.’

  But she was already shaking her head by the time he got to ‘pol—’. ‘Mémé is terrified of the police. Almost as terrified of them as she is of the National Socialists in Germany.’

  ‘Well, she has a point. Mémé is … ?’

  ‘My grandmother.’

  ‘Of course. You need to go home, and I’ll take you.’

  She protested. Even in shock, etiquette asserted itself. She would take the Métro. She knew how to get home even if she’d forgotten the address.

  ‘There’s no possibility of your going home alone. News Monitor policy.’

  ‘News Monitor? Isn’t that the English paper … you work for them?’

  ‘Mmm. Paris office on Boccador. I’ll go to the post office on Abesses where there’s a telephone, and order you a car on the company account. Don’t argue – it’s an account that is abused daily. One more journey won’t make an ounce of difference.’

  He’d reverted to English, the transition unconscious. There’d been nothing halting in his French, though he spoke it with a Spanish overtone as if he’d learned it in the foothills of the Pyrenees. His English was clear and idiomatic, and upper class. This was no impoverished poet, Alix realised. The worn clothes must have some other explanation. ‘Rue St-Sulpice,’ she said suddenly.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘I’ve just remembered, that’s where I live.’

  ‘Excellent. I won’t be long. You wait here with Percy. Should Mme Konstantiva return, talk English. She looks Russian, but that’s because she danced for Diaghilev for many years. These days she takes in passing strays – cats and lodgers, I mean. Be sure to tell her the names of all four of your grandparents.’

  ‘My … what, all four? I don’t know all four,’ she stammered, but he was already out the door.

  Chapter Ten

  A table at Maxim’s on Rue Royale in the company of the Duchesse de Brioude and her son should be a special occasion, and Jean-Yves tried to play the genial host. But the Duchesse’s visit had taken its toll. Rhona’s constant patrolling of the house, snapping orders at the servants, had stretched everyone’s nerves. But it wasn’t all Rhona’s fault; he’d not heard from his blackmailer and felt like a man on a bare hillside who knows a marksman has him in his sights. Every knock at the door, every movement outside his window, made his heart cramp up in fear. He prayed he’d get through this dinner without his self-control slipping.

  But as they were being served their hors-d’oeuvres, a waiter bent close and whispered that a package had been left with the cloakroom attendant, for M. le Comte’s urgent attention.

  Fear, that sleepless dragon, sprang to life. Jean-Yves made his excuses and rose. The waiter, well trained in the arts of male conspiracy, led him to the men’s room and brought him a brown packet. It contained a few lines of writing and a loop of glossy hair. Jean-Yves knew instantly whose writing, and whose hair.


  As he returned to his table, several pairs of female eyes raked him for explanation. ‘I dropped a cufflink at my club a week or so back,’ he improvised shakily. ‘Really, I could have collected it. They needn’t have sent it.’ Alix was in trouble. Should he drive to see her? The hair was hers, he was sure, but how had it been taken? He should have checked it for blood. No chance now.

  ‘I didn’t know you’d lost a cufflink.’ Rhona drummed on the cloth. ‘Which one?’

  ‘Er, one of my college ones – sentimental value only.’ Knowing there was a chance Rhona would ask to see it, Jean-Yves turned to his future son-in-law. ‘I’m starting a collection of single cufflinks, Philippe, donated by the gentlemen of France to send to those men who lost an arm in the war. Good idea, do you think?’

  Philippe de Brioude, who was rather in awe of him, consulted wordlessly with Christine, then stammered, ‘I’m … I’m not sure.’

  Jean-Yves turned to his younger daughter, who could usually be counted on to appreciate his dark humour. ‘Good idea, Ninette?’

  ‘It would be less work to make a collection for the men who’d lost both arms, Papa,’ she answered, fluttering her eyelashes at him over the rim of her wine glass. Eighteen, discovering the power of her blonde beauty, Ninette used ‘Papa’ as a practice target. He looked away, unable to stop himself comparing her to Alix, whose effortless charisma cut to the sinew. Over lunch two days ago he’d told Alix, ‘Some men will be knocked off their feet,’ while adding the silent warning, And some women will do anything to bring you down.

  Conversation had died at the table. The Duchesse stepped into the gap, saying, ‘If I listed the young men I knew who lost limbs at Verdun alone, I would be counting until the cheese arrived. Of course Ninette was born after the war’s horror, so for her it is history.’

  Rhona made a ‘do something’ face across the table, which Jean-Yves ignored. Typical, expecting him to rescue a conversation she’d sent off the rails. This was Rhona’s way. His mother had warned him: ‘Your Rhona will never distinguish your drawing room because she sees the world through a slit – a fault of character that will never mend. But if beauty is enough …’

  He’d thought it was. Rhona shone still, even in Maxim’s, which was a magnet for the rich and pampered. This evening she surpassed her daughters in a red moire evening gown with a high waist that elongated her shape. The focal point of her ensemble, now she was seated, was a choker of pearls with a ruby medallion. Stunning, but all that red made Jean-Yves long for a walk in the woods. He wished Alix had a telephone so he could assure himself she was all right. He’d send a note as soon as they got home. The chauffeur could take it to St-Sulpice.

  *

  Once at home, the comte made to slip into his study, but Rhona caught him at the door. ‘Why didn’t you say something when the duchesse started reciting the blasted casualty list at Verdun?’ she snapped. ‘Christine wanted to discuss her honeymoon this evening. She’s keen for Philippe to take her to Italy or Switzerland – are you listening?’

  He had a glass of Calvados in his hand. His other hand was in his pocket, that curl of hair between his fingers. ‘Heavens, Alix, no more talk tonight, please. I’m exhausted.’

  Deathly silence. Then, ‘What did you call me?’

  He turned to the woman, his wife, whose dress made him think of hellfire, and said, ‘Your pardon. I am a little drunk, for which I humbly apologise.’ And, in order to spare himself further unpleasantness, he returned with her to the salon.

  It was two in the morning by the time everyone was in bed, too late for sending notes. So he skipped family breakfast the next morning, shutting himself in the music room. He’d had his mother’s Bechstein grand brought here on her death, supposedly for his daughters’ benefit, but it was he who played most. Using the piano as a desk, he dashed off a few words to Alix, then sent his chauffeur to St-Sulpice with the instruction to wait for a reply and bring it straight back.

  A Brahms intermezzo calmed him slightly, and he played solidly until Pépin returned. Alix’s reply quelled his worst fears, though it was the writing of a frightened child:

  I am well, Monsieur, but how did you know what happened? A man wants a million francs from you and I should have told you but didn’t know how. He says he will really hurt me if you don’t pay. Please don’t tell Mémé because she’ll be scared stiff and will try to stop me leaving the flat. I said I fell getting out of a train. Yrs, AG

  The telephone rang in the hall. He moved so quickly to reach it, for the first few seconds on the line he couldn’t speak.

  That gritty voice again: ‘Enjoy Maxim’s? I called to see you and some hired dunce of a footman said where to find you. Did you get my little offering?’ A chuckle, then a chopped-up finish. ‘One million francs, used notes. Same cigarette kiosk, five past six tomorrow evening. Plain bag. Leave it and walk—’

  ‘Listen, you damn fool, if I leave it there some passer-by will have it. I’ll put it in the church, at the foot of the right-hand column nearest the altar. A million is impossible, totally impossible. Take five hundred thousand and be damned. And swear never to go near Alix again. Swear it.’

  ‘I scared her a bit, that’s all.’

  ‘Swear it, or you’ll get nothing.’

  ‘All right. Five hundred thousand and I’ll never hurt the girl again.’

  ‘Because if you do,’ Jean-Yves snarled into the mouthpiece, ‘I will find you and kill you. The well-being of Alix Gower is a sacred trust to me. Harm her, and I will send you in pieces to plead your case with the Almighty.’

  A sound made him look up. Rhona was regarding him from across the marble hall. He thought at first it was fury that twisted her mouth so, but when she spoke he heard something far deeper than simple rage.

  ‘A sacred trust? You are indeed a saint! How many years is it since you said anything like that to me, Jean-Yves? In fact, did you ever say such words, or even think them?’ She strode over to him and hurled into his face, ‘Why does that girl get what I have never had?’

  Then, before he could answer, she ran away up the stairs, sobs breaking from her.

  Chapter Eleven

  When Alix began at Maison Javier at the start of April, she found controlled chaos. Javier had launched his delayed spring–summer collection two weeks earlier and orders were starting to flow in.

  According to the bespectacled Mlle Lefoine, the supervisor of the workroom where Alix was to start her apprenticeship, Javier had returned from the Christmas holidays in an unfathomable mood. In February, when his collection should have launched, he’d instead left Paris to visit his sisters – ‘On an island somewhere off Spain. He had planned to bring them to France but he came back alone and locked himself in his studio. Not to work, to listen to sad songs on his gramophone. We didn’t think he’d do a spring–summer collection at all and I wish we hadn’t. Everything’s rushed – three months’ work to do in one. It’s why he engaged you on the strength of one interview,’ she added, inspecting Alix without enthusiasm. ‘Generally we give new girls a week’s trial before they get seen by the première, let alone Javier.’

  That first day, Alix toured the production side of the business. There were twelve ateliers, each with long tables and huge windows. There were also cutting rooms and storerooms crammed with cloth. Pressing rooms, finishing rooms … She was shown the button room and the thread room and the storage room, where finished garments hung awaiting delivery. To Alix these resembled a seminary of ghostly nuns – each garment protected by a white tunic bearing the name of a customer, store buyer or export agency.

  One silent room contained four sewing machines. Her guide, a young première’s assistant called Marcy Stein, told her, ‘They’re only ever used for curtains and table covers. M. Javier believes machines cannot achieve a flat and invisible seam, such as this house is famous for. Here everything is done by hand.’ Marcy looked askance at Alix’s green suit and ventured, ‘You’ll prefer to wear something looser for working.’
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  ‘I’m not a factory girl,’ Alix retorted. ‘I like to be smart.’

  ‘It’s your choice.’

  Day two brought a dose of reality. She heard one of her new colleagues mutter to another, ‘Who’s she trying to impress?’

  The friend snickered back, ‘I shall like to see her climbing over the bench. And she’ll rip those stockings by the end of today.’

  Alix blushed as she hitched her skirt to make the awkward step into her place at the work-table. Some couturiers made their seamstresses work in low light, but at Maison Javier sunshine poured in. Alix sweated. Tight elbows made her first task – hemming swathes of voile curtain for the salon – uncomfortable. Her supervisor leaned over her and tutted. ‘I heard you boasting you were a quick-stitch. Faster than a snail, I grant you.’

  To cap a miserable day, when Alix went to collect her almost-Schiaparelli coat she found somebody had been careless with a box of dressmaker’s chalk. Blue powder was embedded in the roses she’d embroidered on the collar.

  The next day she wore a skirt left over from school days, a cotton blouse, comfortable underwear and cotton stockings. Mlle Lefoine handed her two tobacco-brown smocks, telling her she must embroider her name on the pocket, keep them surgically clean and wear one every day. Quietly taking her place, Alix prayed she’d passed the ordeal of the newcomer. Surely today somebody would offer a comment that wasn’t snide or pitched over her head. Surely somebody would smile or invite her for lunch …

  But the whispering continued. It was like school again. ‘Who is she?’ ‘Gower.’ ‘That’s not French. Mlle Lilliane thinks she could be German … foreign, anyway.’ It was a relief when Mlle Lefoine sent her on errands.

  And when it wasn’t errands, it was menial tasks. ‘Alix, fetch a broom, there’s thread-waste on the floor.’ Or, ‘Alix, why aren’t you picking up pins? I can see a dozen from where I’m sitting. And don’t use a magnet like one stupid girl did. She didn’t last.’