The It Girls

by Karen Harper

  “I can’t bear to wed him, since I’m in love with someone else,” a well-bred eighteen-year-old had told her just yesterday during a bridal fitting. “Mama and Papa are thrilled with the match, but he’s widowed and thirty years older. I don’t care if he has a stately home and a title! I’m to be a marchioness someday, but I’d rather live in a mere cottage with my true love.”

  Lucile had become a comforter as best she could through such stories, but the most grievous was the tragedy of her client Mrs. Atherton, a beautiful woman who had suffered through a terrible divorce case. Of course Lucile sympathized with her. But the woman’s life had turned even more tragic. One day, when she was standing on Lucile’s fitting platform with chiffon draped all around her, came the word that her little son had been killed instantly when a carriage overturned.

  Lucile had broken the tragic news to the woman as gently as she could. She had gone deathly pale and said nothing while Lucile divested her of the half-made garment. She bid Lucile a kind farewell, as she and others stood helpless to be able to comfort her. Then, just after the boy was buried, she took a gun and killed herself by her own hand, arrayed in the black mourning gown Lucile had sent her for the funeral.

  After that, Lucile cherished Esme much more. It made her realize that life must not be all work and no play—or, as the nursery rhyme said, Jack would be a dull boy.

  Was she dull? she agonized far into the dark, lonely nights. Dull to life? “I love what I’m doing, but the whirl of daily duties threatens to swamp me,” she whispered in her silent bed.

  And then, the very next day, she received a note delivered by a messenger that said, I hear you have hired a page boy. Is it time for a new establishment not far from Davies Street and yet so far? Is it time for us to talk again? I will call for you at four o’clock on the morrow to show you an empty shop that is ready to be let for a reasonable fee. Yours truly, Cosmo Duff-Gordon.

  She stared at the bold handwriting but only for a moment. “Wait,” she told the boy. “I will send you back with a reply.”

  Then she wrote, You are most kind. Yes, I believe and hope it is time. Yours, Lucile.

  Like some sort of country dolt, Lucile fussed over what to wear the next day. She also warned her staff to keep away from peeking down the staircase or out windows—they also used her bedroom and the attic now—at her gentleman caller. He was only a business associate, she told them, which, of course, was true.

  She had tea served to him this time, high tea, then they set out, for he wanted her to see the building before he told her more about it. “First impressions matter,” he told her with a steady look.

  They strolled on a lovely spring forenoon down Grosvenor Street to New Bond Street, then turned down Clifford to Old Burlington Street near Savile Row.

  “An area up-and-coming for fashionable shops,” he told her. “Now, as I’ve said before, I want to make an investment in your product and your talent, so no denials or folderol when you hear the price of this. I believe you can well afford this address, because you now have a financial adviser and backer, and don’t argue this time. Also recently, so I hear, you have attracted an international clientele.”

  “I’d like to storm the Bastille of French fashion someday, right in Paris, but you mean the word got out about my Russian orders?”

  “I heard it from a member of Parliament, no less.”

  “As if it were government or men’s business. Well, I didn’t mean that against you, and I accept your advice—your backing, as you say—with gratitude. But as for the foreign orders, I made an array of costumes for Mrs. Willie James to take to Russia with her—ten evening gowns, house gowns, and several coats, all sable trimmed.” She knew she was talking too fast and too much but she was so excited.

  “I lost more than a week’s sleep to get everything ready,” she rushed on, “but it was worth it as it brought in orders from Russian women who admired it all, despite the fact I could not do exact fittings for them. Besides all that, I’m doing up a gown for my sister to be presented at court, though I hear Queen Victoria is too weak and Princess Alexandra may do the honors. It’s one of Elinor’s most romantic dreams come true.”

  “And your romantic dreams?” he asked as they stopped before a narrow shop with a worn façade and the faded number 23 over its door.

  “I—frankly, I’m focused on only business right now.”

  He nodded, but she was certain he had whispered, “Pity!”

  They stared together at the building. The windows were dusty and the place looked—well, droopy, but she saw the potential in it all. She envisioned gowns in the window and gilded writing on the door with her name.

  “It’s quite deep, though it looks narrow,” he told her. “Four rooms and storage at the back.”

  “It looks wonderful to me,” she said, clasping her hands together. “I can just see a scripted sign over the door, The Maison Lucile.”

  “And I happen to have the key,” he said, producing it. He looked very happy—and so intense.

  She couldn’t help herself. She bounced like Esme would if she were offered a sweet.

  Cosmo smiled down at her. “The key to a new beginning,” he told her with a wink when she reached for it and they held it together for a moment. Even through their gloves, his big hand was strong and warm. “Let’s see if you like what’s inside.”

  As he unlocked and opened the door for them, she gripped her hands tightly as if in prayer. She was trembling, and not only because of the shop. Cosmo understood her. He’d come back to help her, after their awkward, dismal start. Despite the fact she hadn’t seen him for months, it was as if they had been together a long time, standing on the cusp of intimacy, or a relationship to cherish. Before this man, that feeling would have frightened her but now it—it was exhilarating and wonderful.

  “Oh yes,” she said as he held the door and she stepped inside ahead of him. “Good gracious, I can certainly make do with this. I can imagine it all freshly painted and carpeted with flowers in vases next to upholstered chairs—the waiting room here, the fitting room farther back, and it isn’t far from Mother and Esme!”

  “Too far from Scotland,” he told her, “but we can work on that.”

  CHAPTER Twelve

  Venice! We’re really in Venice! Isn’t it wonderful, Clayton?” Elinor cried and swept open their French doors, which overlooked the Grand Canal. Their Mediterranean itinerary had filled her with hope—hope for the renewal of their marriage, the promise of more travel. “Of course, I’m especially looking forward to Egypt,” she added. Yet it tempered her excitement when he just nodded and said nothing.

  As twilight fell, she glanced back at him. He was on the sofa, reading a week-old copy of a British newspaper he’d just borrowed from a friend they’d met in the lobby. She was trying desperately to bind the rift in their relationship, but he wasn’t cooperating. She had never admitted she saw him kissing her friend, but she was saving that for ammunition if she needed it. After all, the doldrums of their marriage was not all his fault. She had been ill a good long time and was unable to tramp about the estate or go on his precious shoots with him. Or share his bed.

  As she gazed out at passing gondolas, most with attentive, happy couples in them, she dedicated herself again to try to be at least accommodating. There were many benefits from her marriage. Clayton always traveled first class, and she loved that, whether they were at Cowes for that yachting week or visiting country houses of the well-do-to like Daisy Warwick. Best yet, he’d spoken of taking a flat in Sloane Street in London and not only for the season in May and June. And now, a great escape to Italy, and finally to Egypt, her dream destination.

  Romance was exactly what she was hoping and planning for on their gondola ride shortly, just the two of them cuddled on the seat with their boat steered by a singing helmsman through the moonlit, rustling water.

  “It says here,” Clayton called out as she stepped onto their narrow balcony and leaned, stiff-armed on the carved sto
ne balustrade, “that Lord Curzon has been named undersecretary of state for foreign affairs. Now, that’s a title. ‘Foreign affairs’—I’ll bet. I don’t care if he’s married and how stiff he seemed. Still water runs deep.”

  It takes one to know one, she thought, but she said, “Which is exactly what it looks like on the canal—still but deep waters. Do step out and see the view, Clayton.”

  “Seen it before. I’ll wait for our ride in”—she glanced back at him as he consulted his pocket watch—“just a few minutes. Best get some sort of wrap. I say, your sister’s getting cheeky with her latest summer designs. I can see right through that material to your bare shoulders.”

  “I’m glad you noticed.”

  “I pay enough for the bills,” he muttered and went back to reading.

  She sighed as she went into her bedroom where her lady’s maid, Williams, was laying out her evening garb for later, but she intended to wear this dress now. It irked her that Clayton had become so caustic about bills lately. If they had money for this trip, didn’t they have money for clothes? He’d even fussed over toys she’d bought for Margot, though, heaven knows, he usually paid little attention to his daughter. More than once, now that she had her strength back, he’d hinted he’d like a son. But how could that happen when he hardly shared her bed?

  “Oh, Williams, you’re dressed too. Are you going out?” she asked as the petite woman held out Elinor’s best black silk shawl to place around her shoulders.

  “Why . . . why yes, madame,” she said, sounding flustered, which the practical woman seldom was. “Didn’t Mr. Glyn mention it? He asked me to go along on the boat ride, a treat for me, he said.”

  “Oh—yes, of course. It slipped my mind.”

  Feeling stabbed to her core, Elinor also accepted the flat, black silk handbag Williams held out. She hadn’t been in charity dramas for nothing and managed to hide her hurt and anger. Clayton had done it again: either from spite or ignorance, he’d shown her that her precious world of romance was nothing to him—for perhaps she was nothing to him anymore either.

  Once everything was the way Lucile wanted it for now at her lovely new shop, she set out to find three perfect mannequins to show her clothing to potential customers who sometimes dropped in with little idea of what they wanted. No stuffed linen dummies others offered in their shops, which reminded her of the dreadful death masks in the crypt of Westminster Abbey. She wanted living, breathing beauties—that’s what the Maison Lucile would offer.

  She was looking for a particular, ideal type of feminine body, for, she’d seen, that even if a baroness or countess was short and plump, she seldom saw herself that way. Lucile thought of it as helping her patrons find their better selves. And that didn’t mean she would design something unsuitable for them, just that they needed to view an ideal and then be counseled about how that could be personalized for them alone.

  Although she’d seen women suitable for mannequins on the street, she could hardly just accost them. So instead she decided to go to the source: Harrods, where attractive, young, respectable women worked. Now, just having made a purchase of new satin bedsheets, she took a good look at the shopgirl who’d sold them to her and knew she’d found what—or rather who—she’d been looking for.

  “One question,” she said to the tall blonde. “Are you quite happy with your situation here, or have you thought of another career? For example, have you ever considered wearing exquisite garments for fine ladies to purchase?”

  “Me, madame? Here?” She sounded surprised but kept her calm demeanor and controlled voice.

  Yes, this girl would be perfect. Her face registered emotions but could become very still. Her long, graceful limbs were amazingly elegant.

  Lucile lowered her voice even more. “Not here. You see, I own a ladies’ fashion design store here in London, and I would like to hire you to display clothes, become a living mannequin, so to speak, something quite new. My name is Lucile and the shop is the Maison Lucile, if you could stop by after work,” she said and extended a Lucile Ltd. card to her with the address. “I would pay you a bit more than what you are earning here, of course, and there might be some travel.”

  The girl stared at the card so long with her Cupid’s-bow mouth pursed and her blue eyes wide that Lucile wondered if she could read. “Wear fancy clothes, Madame Lucile?” she said looking up at last. Her brows were perfectly arched and darker than her thick, honey-hued hair. She wouldn’t need a speck of cosmetics and that was exactly what Lucile wanted.

  Well, at least she’d picked up on her name, she thought, so she wasn’t a ninnyhammer. Her street accent was atrocious, but Lucile, Edith, and the others could smooth that out. This girl fit the bill. She’d help her, advise her, soften her . . . even educate her if it came to that.

  “Yes, my dear. Fancy clothes. I am on the up-and-up. Once you see my shop, you will understand. So will you come by after Harrods closes today?”

  To her amazement, tears gilded the girl’s eyes as she nodded. She certainly had the sensitivity to model the dresses of emotion and personality Lucile was promoting now. She’d been right to choose this girl and to recognize her sweet nature. Why, she could wrap this young woman in one of her newly purchased sheets right now, drape the material just right, and she’d look like a goddess.

  And that’s what she’d call her living mannequins—her goddesses.

  After feeling Clayton had tried again to ruin her love for romance, real and fictional, one thing kept Elinor going: Last week they had received word she was to be presented at court in May of 1896. Even Clayton was pleased and had treated her more kindly, for it was a feather in his cap too. At any rate, it had helped her get along with him better lately. She had already written Lucile to order a gown, for there were definite rules for a presentation dress.

  He’d even protested he’d not meant to hurt her feelings over ruining their gondola ride and had just thought taking Williams was “a treat for the girl.”

  “Yes, well, never mind a treat for your wife and the mother of your child,” Elinor had said.

  “A daughter,” he’d countered. “I’d like a son. Wait until you see Egypt and meet Prince Hussein. Sons are elevated there. You and your sister,” he muttered, shaking his head. “She wrote she’s on the hunt to hire girls she calls goddesses, and you are always mooning over seeing the Sphinx, perhaps because it’s a goddess of some sort too. This is still a man’s world, Elinor, and likely to remain so, so let’s just keep your ideas about knights in shining armor rescuing damsels in distress for your private diary or scribblings.”

  “For my writing, not scribblings, Clayton, and I will see my novel published someday, you just wait.”

  “I’ll bet I do,” he’d clipped out and so it went.

  But today, in a fit of pique while shopping near St. Mark’s Square with Williams, Elinor had staged what she considered to be the ultimate act of rebellion. She had fallen in love with a tiger skin displayed in a sales window and purchased it despite the steep cost.

  Oh, how she’d felt when she stroked its vibrant, striped fur. Memories of her happy, youthful days in Paris, of her first adoring beau. He had wanted her to run away with him, which, of course, would have meant ruination, but it had sounded so romantic—still did. She could hear his whisper to her of “Belle Tigress,” and that’s still the way she felt, like a wild animal wanting to live free.

  But to possess this beautiful creature someone had dared to kill, this splendid animal from a far-off land, compelled her. And she had dared to possess it.

  The moment she heard steps and a rustling in the hall, she hurried to open the door before Clayton’s valet or Williams could. She’d been promised the heavy skin would be delivered here, and that must be it.

  “Expecting someone?” Clayton called and followed her to the door, drat him.

  “Mrs. Clayton Glyn?” the man said and, when she nodded, he knelt at her feet and opened the wrapping paper. Out unrolled the big, beautiful orange-and-b
lack-striped tiger skin with the proud head of the big-fanged animal settling last on the carpet.

  She gasped. So proud. So beautiful and wild. And hers.

  “There must be some mistake,” Clayton’s voice cut through her thoughts.

  “No, I bought it earlier today. I wanted you to see it in all its glory before I tried to explain it. For once, words wouldn’t do.”

  “Are you quite mad?”

  But she could see him literally bite his lip as he handed over some coins as a tip for the delivery. The young man was only too glad to beat a hasty retreat.

  “Isn’t it marvelous?” Elinor said before Clayton could speak again. Anyway, he was sputtering with rage.

  “Dare I—dare I ask how much that cost?”

  “Not as much as entertaining your friends for a shoot or as feed for your precious pheasants at home, which don’t look one bit this magnificent, even when absolute droves of them are shot. Clayton, I’ve always wanted a tiger skin and I couldn’t resist it so—so romantic. Can’t you picture us lying there together and—”

  “Speaking of lying, you’ve as good as lied to me by not telling me of this, asking my permission. That tiger head on a wall at Warwick would be one thing, and of course I’d love to go trophy shooting. But with all this trip costs—never mind. Romance, romance, romance! Welcome to the real world of duties and business, Elinor. I want to know what shop you patronized, because it’s going back tomorrow.”

  “It is not. If you’re keeping track of every pound we spend now, every pence, take it out of my next birthday or Yuletide gifts. Tell everyone you bought it for me—for me, your wife, not for a friend I invited to keep you company and then I saw you pawing and kissing outside my window when I was so ill after Margot’s birth.”

  Clayton had gone red in the face. Surely he wouldn’t strike her, but she held her ground, then bent to pull the heavy tiger skin farther back from the door. Then she sat on it.