The Milliner's Secret (23 page)

They said jealousy was a green-eyed monster. If so, Henriette had more green eyes than a cage full of cats. Having offloaded her business when it suited her, she now deeply resented Coralie’s success.

Coralie had not felt so vulnerable since Dietrich had left. These days, she and her child were completely alone. Ramon had gone – a mutual decision. He now lived a few Métro stops away in Montparnasse and had a new woman in his life, though he and Coralie remained married. Apart from sporadic gifts of coal, Coralie got nothing from him so her dream of owning her own salon had gone cold. Noëlle, at twenty-two months, required either a full-time nanny or her mother at home. The frightening truth was that Coralie needed Henriette more than Henriette needed her. Una, half a bottle of champagne under her belt and blissfully unaware of tensions, announced, ‘Dear Coralie, you’ve brought us not just London style but English class. In Paris, that is supremely brave. I declare you Queen of Hats!’

Coralie shook her head to quieten her, but Henriette had heard. Coralie steeled herself for an angry encounter, but when Henriette approached it was to report how excited Mrs Fisk-Castelman had been by the show.

‘One of my best, she says. She assures me that America still keeps its finger on the Paris pulse . . .’ Henriette paused long enough to nod icily at Una ‘. . . and says that I will always have a market in the United States.’

‘Sure you will,’ Una gave back just as coldly, ‘if you open up your next hat shop on board a warship. Nobody plies back and forth across the Atlantic for fun any more.’

Henriette’s smile slipped, but she pulled it back. ‘As you say, Madame Kilpin.’

‘McBride, honey. These days, I paddle my own canoe.’

As Henriette stalked away, Coralie whispered, ‘If you’re going back to the States, Una, how about taking me and Noëlle with you?’

‘I’m not going anywhere. Gladys Fisk-Castelman has been begging me to sail with her when she goes next week, but I won’t desert the city of my heart. And you are about to become famous and doesn’t Henriette know it! When Mrs F-C writes a person up, the world agogs. Is “agogs” a word?’

‘Don’t ask me, but I reckon the world will soon be too worried about conscription and food shortages to agog at anything. We may be having a quiet time of it here, but I hear it’s Hell in Poland.’

‘Whenever you talk like that, I know you’ve seen Ramon.’

‘He visited a few nights ago – he loves to see Noëlle. Say what you like about him, Ramon understands politics. He thinks the Nazis will turn west soon, and invade us.’

‘Oh, just stick to hats, Coralie. If truth is the first casualty of war, then vanity is the last. Let the bombs fall, ladies will still want what you make. You have a terrific future.’

By nine, the salon was empty, the collection boxed away. Discarded programmes littered the carpet and the room smelt of perfume and flat champagne. Time to go home. Coralie ached to hold her child, who would be tucked up in bed by now.

She looked around for Henriette – not to speak with but to avoid her. Tomorrow was soon enough for putting the collection, its cost and likely success through Soufflard’s mincer. As to who was rightful queen here, Coralie didn’t give a kipper’s eyebrow. Not after sixteen hours on her feet. Straightening the belt of her coat, she called goodbye to Amélie and Madame Zénon.

Her mistake was choosing to leave by the main door. Henriette was front-of-house, leaning against the display plinth. Head thrown back, eyes closed. Soufflard was speaking, but he broke off when he saw Coralie.

Henriette opened her eyes, then narrowed them at the sight of Coralie’s outdoor clothes. ‘Off, are you?’ She sounded surprised.

‘It’s quarter past nine. We don’t do a night shift.’

‘Still living in that flat on rue de Seine? Isn’t it too big for a lone woman and child?’ Henriette painted the word ‘lone’ with audible glee.

Coralie could have answered that, actually, the flat was a touch too small for two, but she’d probably still be living there when God sent the next flood. Getting her huge, rustic bed – it had been a gift from Teddy – up the stairs had taken military logistics. She doubted there were any men left in Paris willing to help her get it down again. ‘Yes, Henriette. I’m still on rue de Seine.’

‘Good,’ said Henriette. ‘I’ll have your things sent there. You, I don’t want to see here again.’

Coralie stopped herself swaying by grabbing the nearest solid object, which happened to be Monsieur Soufflard. ‘You’re telling me . . .’

‘To buzz off.’

‘You can’t!’

‘Give me three reasons.’ Henriette had gained weight in Italy and her complexion had sallowed. It had not been an entirely happy residence by all accounts – she’d fallen foul of the Fascist authorities there.

‘Three? All right. I’ve delivered you a collection everyone agrees is stunning. Two, I kept your business together so you had something to get well for—’ Henriette’s mouth twisted. She was waiting for one more reason. Right, she could have it. ‘Three, I’m your sister-in-law.’

Something darker than fury filled Henriette’s eyes. ‘Not any more. He left you.’

‘I threw him out, actually, but we’re still married and you have no right to dismiss me.’

Soufflard cleared his throat. ‘We do. The books don’t balance.’

‘They never do straight after a collection.’ Coralie hardly spared him a glance. ‘When the orders come in, the holes fill up.’

‘That’s not what I’m saying, Mademoiselle de Lirac.’

She considered reminding him that she was legally ‘Madame Cazaubon’. She’d kept ‘de Lirac’ as her professional name, but was entitled to be addressed as ‘Madame’ – unlike Henriette, who called herself ‘Madame’ to increase her status in the business world. In the end, she said nothing because Henriette was thrusting a piece of paper at her.

‘Sign it,’ Henriette commanded. ‘It’s you agreeing to leave, without claim on us.’

Coralie refused. ‘I do have a claim, not least because I’m owed commission. And I won’t give up my job while I’ve a child to support.’

‘Why aren’t you at home, looking after it?’ Monsieur Soufflard seemed genuinely puzzled. ‘I do not approve of working mothers.’

‘“Her” not “it”!’ Coralie hurled at him. ‘And I don’t give a damn whether you approve or not. I work because I have to.’

Staff were trickling into the shop, Amélie and Madame Zénon among them. Coralie was glad to see them. They’d stick up for her. Ignoring them, Henriette tried again to get Coralie to take the document. ‘We are offering you sixty thousand francs to leave, but you have to sign, releasing me from all obligation to you, now and in the future.’

Sixty thousand? Now, that made a difference. Sixty thousand would start her up in her own place, give her some buffer if sales were slow. Still, a warning bell rang. What had Donal told her, years ago, when she’d picked a fight with a big lad at school and got a bloody nose? ‘Rule one: if the other man looks relaxed, it’s because he’s got a brass knuckle in his glove.’ She said, ‘All right, I’ll sign . . .’ the triumph Henriette was not quite sly enough to conceal proved her suspicions were valid ‘. . . when I’ve shown it to a good lawyer.’

Henriette stamped her foot. ‘I’ve tried to be fair! You all heard her,’ at last, she acknowledged her staff, who drew back nervously, ‘hurling my generosity back at me.’ Henriette tore up the paper and nodded to Soufflard, who took out a pen. Using the display table as a surface, he began to write. Coralie twitched at the pedantic scratch of his nib but, at last, he held the results out to her.

It wasn’t a disclaimer, or a promissory note. It was a bill. Coralie read: ‘Stock advanced to Madame Kilpin-McBride from February 1938 through September 1939, 72,000 fr 50’. Payment to Mademoiselle de Lirac in lieu of notice, 60,000 fr. Mademoiselle de Lirac to pay Henriette Junot 12,000 fr 50.’ The last figure was underlined. ‘We will take cash, Mademoiselle.’

Coralie looked at Soufflard, then at Henriette, whose smirk shouted, ‘See?’ ‘You and your American friend have been robbing my business for months,’ Henriette crowed. ‘It’s all in the ledgers. Leave, or we take you to court.’

‘This is unjust! Una’s brought millions of francs in custom. Half the order book is thanks to her.’

‘I find that highly offensive. This is
my
business.
My
success.’ But it was mock-anger and Coralie knew that she was check-mated. She contemplated all the things she could do. Punch Henriette on the nose, or Monsieur Soufflard. Throw
marottes
at the mirrors. Or be dignified. She walked to the door, murmuring, ‘An egg. A bloody egg.’ She turned and said sweetly, ‘Let’s see who brings out the better collection next April, Henriette.’

‘Not you. Nobody will employ you. You’ll understand soon enough the price of stealing my friends, my staff and my little brother.’

‘Henriette, your brother is many things but “little” is not one of them.’

She let the door clash behind her. Here she was again, chucked out on the pavement, and this time she had a child to feed. She
would
feed her child, and send her to the best schools, too. Henriette Junot had pulled the rug, so Coralie would just have to weave herself a fine carpet.

She didn’t turn for home, but walked cautiously up blacked-out rue Royale to boulevard de la Madeleine, where a half-moon enabled her to find La Passerinette and a white card in the salon’s window. It was sandwiched between glass and blinds and Coralie had no reason to believe that it was anything other than the one that had been there since June: “We regret, La Passerinette has closed down. Please ring the bell for uncollected commissions.”

Paris millinery was a small world. The gossip was that Lorienne Royer had left Paris to open an independent shop in some other town. She’d abandoned her assistant, Violaine Beaumont, to deal with irate customers and to claim her salary from the Baronne von Silberstrom in London. Coralie could well believe it, but she hadn’t yet heard that La Passerinette had been sold.

She flipped open the letterbox and sniffed the air inside. Vaguely mushroomy . . . Chances were, the shop was still empty.

Violaine’s flat above the salon was in darkness. The whole building was as dark as a coal-hole, not a crack of light escaping from any of the windows. As it was too late to ring door-bells, she turned for home.

On the pont des Arts, she stopped to catch her breath. Paris sprawled on either side, like badly raked embers, dots of light everywhere. The blackout had been in force since the declaration of war, but people were getting careless. If German bombers ever came at a full moon, they’d follow the Seine as easily as a white-painted road. There had been regular alerts since September, sirens screaming, people tumbling out on to the street, gas masks bumping as they tried to work out where the nearest air-raid shelter was. All false alarms so far.

They called it the ‘
drôle de guerre
’. A joke of a war.

The country that invests everything in defence will fall to the nation that invests everything in attack.
Dietrich had spoken those words to Coralie at the Panthéon, beside the tomb of Napoleon Bonaparte. He’d known what was coming. Perhaps, instead of fantasising about setting up on her own, she ought to be thinking about leaving Paris. Children were already being packed off to the countryside and schools were closing. Just the other day Julie, her young nanny, had asked Coralie if she meant to join the outflow. ‘Some people I know are moving to the Haute-Vienne for safety. It’s remote there.’

‘So remote I’ve never heard of it,’ Coralie had replied. Truth was, she had no safe haven. No friends or contacts outside Paris. Like most people, she was relying on France’s vast wall of defence, the Maginot Line, to keep the Germans at bay. She was relying on an army of two million men, and doing what that Gypsy woman had predicted for her in a field two long summers ago –‘stitching and shaping’.

In other words, just carrying on.

Rue de Seine was a street of galleries and antiques shops including – she glanced up – Galérie
Clisson. She tutted at the chinks of light showing in the upper windows as she passed. Teddy argued that if the Germans were to bomb Paris he’d rather like his street to go first. Generosity and selfishness were united in him: he was living proof that you could love a person without actually finding much in them to admire.