Mademoiselle Chanel

by C. W. Gortner

  Here, I became a hostess in my own right. Friends came in droves—Picasso, Cocteau, Diaghilev, and Vera Bate, a charming redheaded divorcée with numerous social connections who’d met me in my atelier and urged me to open a boutique in London. My biggest orders still came from America, where my clothes matched that fast-paced world, but I gained fame in England, as well, and Vera was one of my staunchest advocates. A fixture on the elite British circuit, she was also perennially short of funds, so I hired her to wear my designs and attract potential clients in her circle.

  “That little writer of yours, Cocteau,” Vera now remarked, “he needs a cure.”

  My friends were gathered in my living room for cocktails before attending a performance of the Ballets Russes, whose costumes I had designed. A Bessie Smith recording played on my brand-new Brunswick phonograph, imported from America, as Vera and I sat at my mirrored bar on the raised stools that gave me an imperious view of the assembly.

  I sipped my drink. “He’s merely exuberant. He wrote the libretto for the play tonight. He always gets nervous before premieres.” At that moment, Cocteau was perched atop one of my sofas, gesticulating, his hair tangled about his animated face as Misia, who had begrudgingly joined my soirees after she realized she’d otherwise be left bored at home, urged him on.

  “Oh, I think he’s more than exuberant,” said Vera. “Haven’t you noticed he’s flown with cocaine? He and that other gaunt fellow—what’s his name again?”

  “Raymond Radiguet. He’s also a writer.”

  “Another one?” Vera sighed, toying with the bugle beads of her gown, one of my creations. “Well, he and his friend Radiguet were holed up in one of the powder rooms upstairs, snorting it. I believe they smoked opium, too. The entire upper floor reeks of it.”

  I smiled through my teeth. I had warned Cocteau about not indulging his vices in my house but he was desperately infatuated with handsome, dissolute Radiguet, whose sexually explicit novel The Devil in the Flesh had catapulted him to fame. “It’s all the rage among these writers and artists,” I said, with feigned nonchalance. “They mean no harm.”

  She shrugged. “Perhaps. But don’t you get tired of their bombast and poverty, all crowded together in Montparnasse? It’s so passé. You should broaden your social horizons. None of these people can properly wear your clothes, much less afford them. And you have a birthday coming up in August; you cannot mean to spend it like this, among scribblers and addicts? Forty years should be done up in style.”

  “Actually, I plan to throw a party in Monte Carlo, on a yacht.” As her expression turned avid, for Vera loved extravagance, though like those she denigrated she could hardly afford it, I went on, “Though how I’ll fit all my scribblers and addicts onboard remains to be seen.”

  “A yacht!” she exclaimed. “I know the perfect one! And there’s a perfect English lord to go with it, who asked me all sorts of questions about you when I was in London. He’s—”

  Cocteau’s febrile voice interrupted her: “Coco, darling, are you coming?” Someone had coaxed him off the sofa and the guests were gathering to depart for the theater. As I slipped from the stool to reach for my black embroidered wrap, Vera said, “He really is divine. You must meet him. He’ll be in Monte Carlo this very summer, in fact.”

  “Oh?” With a glazed smile, I waved Vera to my car, telling her I would join her in a minute. As Misia struggled into her too-snug coat, I pulled her aside. “I need the address of the best rehabilitation facility you know,” I hissed, even as I didn’t fail to note the irony that I sought the assistance of another addict. But Misia had never shown Cocteau’s level of excess, though I wondered if she perhaps abetted it. My rising social influence had eclipsed hers, and as she demonstrated with Stravinsky, she was nothing if not envious. She was perfectly capable of giving Cocteau the drugs in order to lure him from my side.

  Misia went still. “Oh, no. Have you been using too much . . . ?”

  “Not for me. For Cocteau.” I hauled her coat over her shoulders, tucking her bobbed hair over the collar (she had cut her hair short like mine, though it did not suit her). “That lover of his, Radiguet, is intolerable, and you know how easily influenced Jean is. He needs our help before he ends up in the gutter.”

  As I’d hoped, the words “our help” were music to her ear. “I’ll telephone you tomorrow,” she said eagerly. “The poor dear, now that you mention it, he hasn’t been looking at all well.” As I turned to follow the others to the waiting cars, Misia added spitefully, “You must be so pleased with yourself. So celebrated everywhere, the toast of the society columns, the most acclaimed couturière in Paris, and now, muse to every starving artist. No one even remembers that it was I, darling, who first taught you to appreciate modern art. Perhaps it won’t be too long before you welcome one of them into your empty bed, as well?”

  I glowered. She always managed to find one raw nerve.

  After I slid into the backseat of my Rolls and rapped on the glass partition to alert my chauffeur that he could drive, Vera gave me a tart look. “Misia Sert certainly seems to know a great deal about too many things, doesn’t she?” she said, betraying that she had overheard.

  “Entirely,” I replied. “This Englishman you mentioned, I’d like to hear more about him.”

  VII

  I ran myself ragged up until the last minute before I departed for Monte Carlo and my fortieth birthday celebration. First, I met with the owner of Galeries Lafayette to ask him to carry my perfume in the hope a slew of new orders would incite Ernest Beaux to increase production. But the Galeries’ owner told me a “nose” like Beaux could never produce sufficient quantities for a department store. He telephoned Pierre Wertheimer, co-owner of France’s largest fragrance and cosmetics company, Parfumeries Bourjois. When Wertheimer expressed interest in helping me, I had to make a quick trip to Longchamp, the very racetrack where I first met Boy, to discuss our arrangement. Before I went, I called Balsan to ask his advice; he knew everyone in the business world and he warned me to be careful. Pierre and his brother Paul were aggressive entrepreneurs who had amassed an empire with ruthless disdain for those they did business with because, according to Balsan, they were Jews.

  I didn’t care if they were but I was taken aback when the stocky Pierre told me, between shouts while watching his Thoroughbreds race, that I needed to incorporate if I wanted to make and distribute my perfume through his company.

  “We can do it for you,” he said, “but you’ll need to sign a contract.”

  I detested contracts. Recalling how Boy had admonished me to focus on what I did best and leave those things I did not to the experts, I replied, “Fine. But I’ll not surrender a stake in my fashion house nor allow you to sell inferior products under my name. I’m satisfied with ten percent of the capital. For the rest, I don’t want to have to answer to anyone. And Beaux will develop my perfumes until I say otherwise.”

  Wertheimer agreed. Upon my return to Paris with a draft contract, I plunged into the finishing touches for my latest collection, which included sheath dresses in silk and wool crepe that camouflaged the waist, bust, and hips, overlaid with beaded appliqués. I’d even begun a new venture into faux jewelry. Dmitri’s idea had served me in good stead; I’d set up my own workshops to manufacture necklaces, pendants, and brooches with oversize glass stones in rich Byzantine and Renaissance designs, as well as multicolored strands of pearls. I wore my creations myself to great effect, even donning one black pearl earring and one white, layering my wrists with enamel-and-mosaic cuffs or gold-coin bracelets, which highlighted the seemingly shapeless cut of my clothes.

  Now here I was on the eve of my fortieth birthday, dressed in a black sheath gown (I was the only woman allowed to wear black tonight; I’d made it a stipulation in my invitation), on a rented yacht in Monte Carlo strung with lights and listening to the music of a full orchestra. Everyone who knew me attended, plus quite a few who wanted to. I planned to relax in Monaco’s playground for the rich under a ha
rvest moon that to me augured luck for the coming year, both in my couture and parfum ventures.

  Vera had told me that the Englishman who’d asked her about me was known as Bendor to his friends. To everyone else, he was Hugh Richard Arthur Grosvenor, second Duke of Westminster, one of the richest men in the world. I had seen his famous yacht, the Silver Cloud, entering the harbor, a titan of a ship, fully lit and gleaming, dwarfing every other vessel around it, including the one for my party. To me, it seemed vulgar ostentation, more like a floating hotel—and replete, I was certain, with the requisite staff of butlers, chambermaids, and other hirelings.

  “He wants us to come onboard later,” Vera said as I dressed for the party, “for aperitifs.”

  I chuckled. “We’ll see.” I had no intention of obliging. His Grace Lord Bendor was in no position to offer me an aperitif or anything else at this time, for he was in the process of unloading a troublesome second wife. His acrimonious divorce had made front-page news, with his wife declaring to all and sundry that he had been rabidly unfaithful, which she cited as the reason she’d failed to provide him with his coveted male heir. His previous marriage had also ended in divorce, after that wife gave him a son who died tragically at the age of four, and two daughters, who under England’s barbaric inheritance laws could not claim his estate.

  “He’s looking for a new wife as soon as his divorce is final,” Vera explained. “Unfortunately, most women he meets bore him to tears. He isn’t what you might think. He prefers working and self-made people. He claims the aristocracy remind him of stuffed boar heads, and he should know. He has plenty of both around him.”

  Be that as it may, I wasn’t looking for a husband. It was the furthest thing from my mind. Misia, with her unerring talent for snooping, also regaled me with contradictory and less savory tales about Bendor as soon as I revealed Vera’s plan.

  “He’s a horrible snob. He hates working people, unless they work for him. He’s also monstrously prejudiced. He despises Jews, homosexuals, and socialists. He has declared they will be the ruin of Europe’s economy.”

  “Homosexuals?” I was amused. “How can they possibly ruin the economy? Jewelry and cosmetics, perhaps; they always want us to wear too much of both. But money? Most homosexuals we know are as poor as rats. Just look at our Cocteau.”

  Poor Jean was not at my party. I had convinced him to enter a sanatorium specializing in opiate addiction. He agreed when I also told him I would pay and his friend Radiguet could join him. Radiguet refused but Cocteau went, because if he didn’t wean himself off the drug there was no hope for his future with Radiguet, as they were both likely to perish of an overdose.

  Turning my gaze from Bendor’s leviathan yacht, I watched my guests chatter, gyrate to the latest dances—the Charleston, with its pigeon-toed gait and goose-wing gestures was all the rage—and toss my rented glasses overboard with an abandon they’d never have shown if they were paying for it.

  When Vera spied me at the railing, she excused herself and sidled through the crowd. Her curves were accentuated by one of my scarlet evening dresses, with ropes of my fashionable new pearls about her throat and a silk camellia pinned in her curled red hair.

  “Well?” she asked. “Are you going to accept Bendor’s invitation? He telephoned our suite after you left. He’s very keen on meeting you.”

  “Yes,” I said, reaching into my tassel bag for my cigarettes. Her friend, a tall man with a sleek demeanor whom I did not recognize, kept staring at me. Something about the intensity of his stare made me uncomfortable. Turning away, I lit a cigarette and said to Vera, “Why is your duke so keen, I wonder? Have you been filling his ears with lurid tales about me?”

  “Only of your charming person. He already knows how wildly successful you are and that you’re currently unattached—”

  “I’m always unattached,” I cut in, with a smile. “I’ve never been attached—unless it’s to my work, and that attachment is permanent. I might as well wear a Chanel wedding band.”

  “Yes, yes.” She waved her hand to dispel my smoke; Vera was one of the few people I knew who abhorred cigarettes. “He knows that, too. He admires it. I told you, he prefers self-made people, and you’re one of the most famous self-made women in the—”

  “Dmitri!” I swept from her to greet my grand duke, who had just arrived. He looked marvelous, healthy and tan from his long idyll in Biarritz, wearing impeccable white tails and silver-and-onyx cuffs. “I have missed you,” I breathed, kissing him on the lips as he gazed at me, bemused, before he gave a knowing smile.

  “Who are you trying to avoid?”

  “Everyone.” I linked my arm in his, bringing him to Vera. “Have you met Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich?”

  Vera simpered; to Dmitri’s mirth, she dipped a curtsy that revealed her rouged knees. “Enchanté, Your Highness.”

  “Careful,” I whispered as I then guided him away, past the staring blue-eyed stranger. “All she thinks about is hunting men, the richer and more titled the better.”

  “I’m hardly either these days,” he said, “but that could soon change.” He lowered his voice. “I’ve met an American, a real-estate heiress. I’m thinking of proposing to her.”

  “Do you love her?” I said, in wry amusement.

  “Do I need to?” he replied, with equally wry indifference.

  We laughed. Our affair might have ended, but I still found him irresistible, and especially now that I did not have to maintain him.

  “Who is your English lady friend trying to hunt for you?” he asked as we drank champagne. My wide-eyed friends kept coming by to introduce themselves, agog that an actual living Romanov was in our midst.

  “The Duke of Westminster.”

  “Really?” Dmitri’s eyes widened. “He’s terribly rich.”

  “So I’m told. He wants me to visit him later on that beast in the harbor. But I don’t think I will, now that you’re here.”

  “Why not? I would like to see his beast. I hear it’s a marvel. He could reside on it all year if he chose—not that he would, with all his estates.”

  I paused, a hand on my hip. “You want to see his yacht?”

  He shrugged. “What’s the harm? Besides, if I go with you, your virtue will be secure. I don’t think the English duke would violate you with a Russian prince onboard.”

  “Honestly, Dmitri, if you’re thinking of asking him for a loan . . .”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it.” He bowed with an elegance that made the women dancing the Charleston behind us stumble. “But,” he said, with a wink, “you might get one for me.”

  WE WENT AFTER MIDNIGHT, as my party reached a crescendo and those few guests not drunk enough to notice my absence would not have minded if they did. Bendor sent a motorboat to bring us to his yacht; I had to tie a scarf about my head to protect my hair, arriving upon the Silver Cloud looking, as Dmitri teased, “like a Russian lady in a wind-torn babushka.”

  Bendor waited for us on deck—a tall, slightly florid man with a broad brow, slicked dark blond hair parted in the middle, cherubic lips that were almost sultry, and pale blue eyes. He wore rumpled white linen trousers, an open-necked shirt that showed a hint of bronzed throat, and a navy blue sailor’s blazer I coveted on the spot. He was elegant, but not overly so, masculine without overt coarseness. To my surprise, I found him attractive—a fact, I realized, that would not come as a surprise to him. Being who he was, he no doubt found himself attractive to a good many women.

  Vera kissed him on both cheeks in the French manner, bringing a blush to his face. “Mademoiselle,” he said, turning to me. “I’m honored you agreed to meet me.”

  “Oh, no,” I said carelessly, “I’m assured the honor is all mine.”

  As he gave us a tour of his yacht, which proved even more impressive on the inside, with old master paintings covering the portholes and furnishings fit for a great hall, he spoke in a clipped, low voice about how he loved to sail more than anything else. While a hired Gypsy band strum
med mandolins outside the polished mahogany stateroom, he treated us to more champagne and caviar. I was becoming quite drunk. Dmitri kept smiling, fending off Vera’s attentions as he observed my flirtation with Bendor. I flipped open my cigarette case only to exclaim that I’d forgotten my lighter, obliging him to light my cigarette for me. I asked him endless questions about the yacht so he could explain it all to me, though I couldn’t have cared less about special engines or navigation systems.

  I didn’t know why I acted as I did, only that it amused me to see if I could fluster him and determine if his intent was purely one of conquest or a genuine desire to discover who I was. By the night’s end, I remained undecided. He inquired about my business, nodding in somber approval as I detailed my latest ventures, the champagne having loosened my usually reticent tongue. He did not touch me once until I felt his fingertips on my arm as he assisted me to the motorboat that would take us back to shore. He behaved with consummate propriety, which only intrigued me the more. Before I stepped down into the motorboat, he said haltingly, as if I might refuse, “I own a home in Deauville, mademoiselle, where I understand one of your boutiques is located. I would be delighted if you’d allow me to see you the next time I’m there.”

  I handed him my card. “Do telephone me.”

  He was not exactly smiling as I boarded the motorboat, but the steadiness in his gaze assured me that I had not heard the last of him.