Mademoiselle Chanel

by C. W. Gortner

  “I see,” I said dryly. “And does this gallant knight of yours have a name?”

  “Not yet.” She turned a smile to me. “But he will, I have no doubt. We will meet and—”

  “He will bring you to your knees,” I cut in, and when I saw her flinch, I added more gently, “Or you to his. In the end, it’s the same thing. Or so I hear.”

  She brightened. “What about you? I told you my dream. Now you must tell me yours.”

  “I . . . I don’t have any dreams,” I said haltingly. “I only know I want to do something.”

  “Do?” she echoed, as though the notion was unfamiliar.

  “Yes. Be someone.” I hadn’t ever contemplated such an idea before, hadn’t even realized it skulked inside me, and I thought she would laugh at me, for my dream was even more ridiculous than hers. I was poor and female. Working for someone would be sufficient accomplishment, if I ever got that far.

  But she appeared to consider me as if it was possible. “I think you will,” she said at length. “I believe you can do whatever you choose. You simply require the opportunity.”

  “And opportunities are like stories in books,” I retorted. “All we need do is pick one.”

  “I believe you just did. You want to be someone.” She kissed my cheek before she folded back the covers to return to her own bed.

  VI

  Varennes-sur-Allier wasn’t much of a village. I had known others like it in my childhood—a scrabble of whitewashed houses and shops huddled together, encircled by a road that exuded massive quantities of dust whenever a coach rattled past on its way to better places.

  There was an ancient church near the travelers’ inn and railroad station where Uncle Costier worked. In the village itself, surrounded by crop fields, men doffed their berets and black-clad widows eyed us as we made our way to Aunt Louise’s house—a simple stone structure with a red-tile roof, reached by a pathway through a vegetable patch. In the doorway, a tidy woman waved to us. Her resemblance to my father, to Adrienne and me, was startling. Of course, she was Papa’s sister, too, just as Adrienne was, so why did I feel this sudden urge to run away? Did I not want to be part of their lives? Deep inside, I did, but the reminder that these very people had not once come to find us stifled me. I had a thousand questions. Why had they left us alone? Did they have news of my father or brothers? Yet I said nothing. Aubazine had taught me to be guarded.

  “Oh, my goodness, look at you!” exclaimed Tante Louise. “So like my brother Albert yet as petite as your mother. And you, Julia: why you’re as lovely as a cameo.” Kissing my sister and me on our cheeks, she swept us inside her home with its upholstered furnishings and cupboard displaying porcelain plate and silverware—clear signs that she’d married into a class higher than the one into which she’d been born.

  She served tea with napkins, and little cakes with frosting. “Are you hungry, my dear? Go on, eat some more. Poor thing, you look half starved. Don’t they feed you enough at the convent? They do? Well, then, you’re not eating as you should. Look at Julia here, she’s far more flesh on her bones. You’re too thin. Now, let me see: I have this nice fresh bread and smoked ham. The ham was cured right here in Varennes! Come now. Eat some. No, more. Now, don’t be shy. This is not the convent, my dear. Here, you may eat your fill.”

  With my stomach engorged, I was hurried into the parlor, a corner suited to feminine sensibilities. Here, there was a bit of a mess for such an otherwise neat household, baskets of multicolored trims, remnants of lace, and spools of ribbons strewn everywhere save for the woven-backed chairs. On the worktable were several bonnets in various stages of adornment, lined up like plump children awaiting inspection.

  “Gabrielle has been dying to see these!” Adrienne said. “She’s been so curious about how you make the capotes. I saw Angélique at the convent wearing one and Gabrielle has been asking about it ever since. She is quite determined.”

  An exaggeration, of course, but a clever one that caught Tante Louise’s attention. She swerved her bright, birdlike gaze to me. “Is that so? Do you sew, my dear?”

  “Yes,” I mumbled, swallowing a belch that tasted of cured ham. “In the convent, I—”

  Julia piped up, “She was the best seamstress in Aubazine. The nuns always praised her work. She can trim a handkerchief, mend a sleeve, or turn a hem so that it looks perfect, like new. Isn’t that so, Gabrielle?”

  I nodded uncertainly. Hearing my sister extol my skills made me uncomfortable.

  “Oh, that is high praise, indeed,” said Louise. “The nuns are notoriously hard to please. Such perfectionists! Would you like to work on a hat with me, my dear? Go on, don’t be shy. Here, take this one.” She thrust a bonnet into my hands. “It’s not finished yet and I’ve so many to attend to before the season starts in Vichy.” She directed an exasperated look at Adrienne. “I ask you, how hard can it be for those merchants to learn their own trade? By my word, they wait until the last minute, taking orders from all and sundry, they’re so eager, and then they run about in a panic because they cannot be paid until the order is delivered to the customer’s satisfaction and . . .”

  Her babble of woes faded as I contemplated the thing she had set into my palms. It wasn’t finished? To me, it looked as if it were about to grow legs and walk clucking into the garden, laden with carnation baubles, streamers, and sprigs of orange plume.

  I became aware of the sudden silence, and glanced up to see the three of them watching me expectantly. The polite thing to do was say it was perfect and return it to its overdressed siblings. What did I know about hats? Yet I found myself staring at it closely, everything fading around me, disappearing, as it had in Aubazine when I’d toiled over camellias on a handkerchief. I reached out tentatively, as though the hat might squeal in protest, and plucked off the plume.

  Better. But it still did not look right. Turning it around, I removed one of the streamers. Ah, much better. Now, the actual shape showed. With the palm of my hand, I flattened one bauble and wriggled the others off. Threads dangled now; searching the table, I found a pair of scissors and snipped them. Now, it looked like something a woman could wear.

  After turning it around several times to assess it, I was satisfied. Its basic form couldn’t be helped, for it was the ubiquitous lady’s headpiece, with ribbons to affix it under the chin and a shallow depth intended to make it sit perkily on the head. Hardly ideal, but it worked for what it was. Turning around, I found my aunts and sister still staring at me. I thought I saw shock on their faces. A tremor went through me. I had just ruined a hat that Louise had no doubt worked on for weeks, ordered by a customer, entrusted to her by the milliner.

  Louise gaped at me. Adrienne giggled. “See? I told you, she’s quite determined.”

  “Yes, I do see.” Louise’s voice was tight. “Obviously, her talent is raw.” She paused, inspecting the refurbished capote as if she couldn’t decide whether to scold or applaud. “And these others . . . ? What would you do with them?”

  “Nothing.” I tried to force out a smile. “They’re all lovely.”

  Louise gave me a searching look. “Please, don’t humor me. What would you do?”

  “Strip them bare and start again,” I replied, without understanding from where my brazen confidence sprang.

  “Why?” asked Louise, to my disconcertion. “Do you find them ugly, perhaps?”

  I felt as I had in the abbess’s chamber, cornered by a question with no easy answer. “Not ugly. But . . . uncomfortable. Do we really need to walk around with a basket of fruit on our heads?”

  “A basket of fruit!” Louise let out a nervous chortle. “Oh my. I think we should start slowly. These bonnets are the latest style. It’s the summer, after all. A hat must keep the sun off one’s face and yet announce to the world that one is a lady.”

  And a lady must be seen coming from a mile away, I wanted to reply. Instead, I said quietly, “Why not use one or two pins, instead?”

  “Pins?” Louise echoed.
>
  “Yes. Hat pins. With simple stones, to set off the hat’s shape without covering it up. It is still a hat. It should look like one. Shouldn’t it?”

  Louise turned from me to survey her hats. Excess was clearly her preference when it came to hats and food. Yet in her soul, she remained a frugal peasant of the Auvergne; and to her credit, and my astonishment, she turned to one of her cabinets and pulled out a drawer. She set it before me on the worktable. “Are these suitable?”

  The drawer was filled with hat pins of every imaginable size and shape, some far too ornate to ever be noticed in an already overblown bonnet, but others that were less so. I selected a bone one with a fake blue sapphire. “May I?” I asked.

  Louise stepped aside. I searched the hats for the least garnished and settled on a straw-braided boater with an azure band. Taking it up, I slid the pin through the band and then rummaged in the detritus around me for suitable adornment. When I found what felt right—a white linen flower that reminded me of the camellia of Aubazine—I took up needle and thread to attach it to the rim, nestling it against the side like a fallen bloom. “There. See?”

  Adrienne didn’t wait for her sister’s verdict. Seizing it from me, she put the boater on and cocked her head, a hand at her hip. “Well? Does it suit?”

  The consternation on Louise’s face faded. “Why, it does. It does, indeed. It’s so . . . different.” She turned to me. “Where did you learn to do this?”

  I shrugged. I didn’t know, but I found myself echoing the abbess’s words: “Sometimes, it’s the simplest things we should most long for.”

  I hadn’t meant to repeat the very phrase that had seemed more a warning than an encouragement. Nevertheless, as I viewed the boater on Adrienne’s head, I realized that like the sheets, handkerchiefs, and other items I’d sewn in Aubazine, I was proud of this, too. It wasn’t my choice of a hat, but I could wear it. I wouldn’t be ashamed to be seen in it.

  “I’m keeping it,” Adrienne said. “I’ll show it off next time we go to Vichy,” and as Louise spluttered that the hat was already bought and Adrienne couldn’t possibly be seen parading about Vichy in another lady’s property, I looked past them to where Julia dawdled on a stool, nibbling on one of the frosted cakes.

  Her smile needed no interpretation. I could hear her saying, “Didn’t I tell you so?” as loudly as if she had shouted it out to the uncaring world.

  For the first time since leaving Aubazine, I felt a stirring of hope.

  Perhaps I did have a gift, after all.

  VII

  Moulins wasn’t dreary compared with Aubazine. It boasted several taverns, cafés, and shops, and brigades of reserve officers were garrisoned outside town. I’d seen them on parade, marching down Moulins’s one main street preceded by drumrolls and tinny trumpets—stalwart youths encased in epaulettes, braided waistcoats, and shiny leather boots.

  There was also a boys’ grammar school across the road from the convent. Every afternoon when the bells rang, the boys scampered out with their satchels slung over their shoulders, each one wearing the belted black overblouse with its round white collar, under which peeped shorts that reached just above knobby knees and high socks hugging skinny calves that looked like mine, their feet in tie-up ankle boots. I watched the boys from my dormitory window swaggering and shoving at one another, fascinated by their liveliness, their tugging at their colored ties and their yanking of hats from tousled heads as they raced down the lane, whooping like corsairs.

  But I saw it only through a window. Girls couldn’t go anywhere alone. We had to leave together in chaperoned packs, herded by the nuns, to various ceremonies in the church nearby and to sing in the choir for civic functions.

  I liked singing. I liked the sensation of hearing my voice rise and imagining it was a bird taking flight, so that I could see all of Moulins and beyond, past the sedate villages, over the serpentine rivers to the waters of the Seine itself, dissecting the glamorous city of Paris.

  To escape to Paris had become my obsession. The library of Notre Dame was much the same as Aubazine’s, and I was weary of religious tracts. Through Adrienne—who encouraged my whim—I discovered a thriving black-market trade within the convent, a furtive exchange of cigarettes, ribbons, and gardenia-scented soap among the rich girls, who were willing to buy us articles we requested in return for our menial labor. So I ironed and mended their uniforms; I fetched water from the well and heated it in the kitchens, lugging it up flights of stairs to pour it into their copper tubs. In return, they brought me the only thing I desired: more stories.

  Not actual books. These were too expensive and impossible to hide in the dormitory, which the nuns periodically swept through in search of contraband. Instead, I huddled under the covers at night to read serials published in Parisian newspapers, ongoing sagas that the rich girls had their mothers cut out and stuff into their weekly care packages, which I sewed into makeshift booklets that fit flat under my cot. Most were dreadful, high-strung tales of noble-hearted courtesans who perished of unrequited love or evil queens who poisoned their foes.

  I enjoyed the queens more. Courtesans seemed to revel in suffering for suffering’s sake, while the queens simply did what had to be done. Yet no matter how trite, even the worst stories had a kernel of truth to impart, illuminating the mysteries of the world. The more I read, the more anxious I became for my own life to begin. If I’d had the choice, I’d have walked barefoot to Paris, where anything seemed possible, even for a nobody like me.

  In 1903, Adrienne and I turned twenty and were finally released. Julia, who had stayed two years longer than she should have, announced she had decided to reside with our grandparents and help them with their stall in the marketplace.

  I was dismayed. I knew she had visited them. In the past few months, she had not accompanied me to Louise’s house so she could make the trip to the town where they lived. She had even asked me to go with her, but I refused. Without my ever asking her, Tante Louise had confided that she made inquiries and found that our brothers Alphonse and Lucien had been given away to farmer families after we left for the convent, spending their childhood working in the fields. No one knew where they were now; my fury was kindled anew against all those who’d forsaken us. Tante Louise had made her amends, but she was the only one I cared to forgive. I admired Julia, for she was indeed stronger than she believed if she could care for the very people who had abandoned us. Personally, I had nothing to say to our grandparents. They were old now, settled in their ways, so I felt it best to remain at a distance.

  “Why do you want to live with them?” I now asked my sister. “There’s no future for you there. You’ll grow old selling their vegetables.”

  “Where else can I go?” She sighed. “You know I don’t sew well enough to take a job like you and Adrienne. I’ll only be in your way. Besides, they cannot manage on their own. Antoinette can join me when her time comes to leave the boarding school; she will need a place to live and work. Louise also says she’ll visit me often. You needn’t worry about me anymore.”

  “But you and Antoinette can live with me!” All of a sudden, my anger boiled up. “Julia, you’re always saying you’re not good at anything, but how will you know if you don’t try? Stay with me and we’ll figure out the rest. They never cared about us. They never tried to see us!”

  She smiled sadly. “Gabrielle, you only say that now because you must, but you know that in time, I’ll be a burden to you. I am content to sell vegetables and tend to two old people. I don’t blame them; what else could they do? We were children then, extra mouths to feed. Now I can be of use, so please, let’s not quarrel. I want us to say good-bye like sisters.” She kissed my cheek, holding me close. “Be brave,” she whispered. “You are the strong one. You always were.”

  I found myself fighting back tears as she boarded the carriage to the village where my father’s parents resided. I wanted to force her to stay, although I knew it was useless. Julia might not have my courage but she was as ob
stinate as any Chanel when she set her mind to something. I realized then, as the carriage pulled away, that I should have felt abandoned, as I had when we were left in Aubazine. But in truth, much as I despised myself for it, I felt only shameful relief.

  Julia knew me better than I knew myself. She knew that becoming my burden would sour our love for each other, and that she could not bear.

  As for Adrienne and me, the nuns and Louise had put their heads together and found us a position in Moulins in an establishment with the grandiose name of House of Grampayre, though it was only a modest lingerie and hosiery shop catering to local ladies and the garrisons. The proprietress, Madame G., as Adrienne and I dubbed her, repaired the usual assortment of women’s apparel, as well as the torn, soiled passementerie of the officers’ uniforms. In addition to our work, she offered us a cramped attic room near the shop that we could rent, she declared, “for a pittance.”

  That would have been fine had she not paid us a pittance of a wage. Her hours were tyrannical. From seven in the morning to nearly eight at night, we spent the entire time, save for a brief break for lunch, in an airless back room, sweltering over heaps of gowns with rent hems and split seams, cloaks that needed new buttons or linings replaced, and untold quantities of other wear and tear. Our backs ached constantly; at night, we huddled in our room over the tiny stove we tended with fearful obsessiveness, lest the fire got out of hand. After three months, I announced to Adrienne (who was becoming a shade of her former self) that we had to seek another means of subsistence. We couldn’t go on like this, hoarding our weekly pay only to return it to Madame G. for rent, subsisting on the vegetables, cured ham, bread, and cheese that Louise gave us every Sunday, our one day off, which we spent traveling to and from her home.