The Milliner's Secret

by Natalie Meg Evans

  The first parade was due to start at eleven sharp, and people were arriving. Coralie felt her first stage-fright. She had always modelled her own hats – there’d never been anyone else to do it – but today she would parade alongside Solange. She hoped it wouldn’t be a case of gliding swan and waddling duck. Violaine had already set up a table and mirror in the corridor. She’d help them into each hat and fix the numbered tags to their wrists, which was how the audience identified each model. Didi and Paulette would show clients to their chairs, or to the standing-room behind the chairs, and serve canapés while Madame Thomas poured champagne. Half a glass only per visitor, or there wouldn’t be enough.

  ‘I think this is our best collection so far,’ Violaine said as they waited for the audience to settle.

  Madame Thomas popped her head round the door to report that the mainly German female gathering had taken their glasses without thanks. The finest champagne was their due, apparently.

  ‘So long as they order my hats, they can be as sniffy as they like.’ Coralie shivered in her summer dress. A cold March day, and she was promoting thoughts of sunshine and holidays. The spring–summer couture shows that had finished a month before had finally rung the death knell of the tubular, bias-cut styles of the 1930s. This year’s waistlines were nipped in. Not with belts – belts were ‘Sooo ante-bellum’, as Una put it – but with darts that followed the contours of hand-span waists. We all have hand-span waists, these days, Coralie thought, catching her reflection in the cheval mirror. Skirts were wide, sometimes with spare fabric bunched at the back, giving the illusion of a well-fleshed bottom. Necklines had been getting lower for a couple of years and both Coralie and Solange displayed cleavage. Short bolero jackets restored some modesty. With skirts shorter and fuller, jackets had shifted upwards, ending at the ribcage or just under the bosom. Hat design always followed couture, and this season’s were higher and blowsier to balance the new silhouette.

  Madame Thomas called around the door, ‘Ready, I think.’

  Coralie squeezed her coral bracelet for luck and slowed down her mind. Do it any way you like, Solange had said, just don’t rush. Four paces along the catwalk, pause and pose. Walk to the end, turn, pose, hold, giving each side of the room time to study her from all angles and note the model number on her wrist.

  Taking her time gave her the chance to assess her audience. German officers’ wives always dressed conservatively and wore little makeup. Strong faces, bony brows, hairstyles resolutely old-fashioned. These wives, along with the female clerks, typists and telegraphers bulking up the German administration, had been dubbed ‘grey mice’ by Parisians, who, if they noticed them at all, did so with studied disdain.

  Posing in a hat of stiffened chintz with gossamer-silk roses on a frame of millinery wire, Coralie acknowledged that the ‘grey mice’ took the business of fashion seriously. They were making notes. But whereas Parisian women craned forward, conferring with their neighbours, sketching outlines with their hands – sometimes breaking into spontaneous applause if something delighted them – these women wrote behind their hands as if in competition with each other. And just as they’d taken her champagne without appreciation, she suspected they wanted her hats, but not her.

  The first twenty-four models were wide-brimmed Gainsborough styles, designed for sunshine, for race-days – and there still was racing at Longchamps – for outdoor dining or strolling beside the river. She’d created them from salvaged cottons and silks laid over foundations of buckram and tarlatan. Using short-runs of cloth meant she’d never be able to replicate these models exactly. The selection that she and Solange were about to show would be easy to reproduce, however, because Coralie had acquired quantities of raw fibre from an unexpected source.

  A rather disagreeable source.

  In the corridor, she let Violaine replace flowered chintz with a sun-hat in an understated shade of grey. As she listened for Solange’s returning footsteps, she stroked its crown. Not just the colour of smoke, every bit as light, too. This was the surprise element of the collection, the one she’d balked at explaining to Dietrich that morning..

  The silk water-lilies around the brim had begun life as a parachute hooked on a tree somewhere in the Burgundy region. The more informed among the audience might recognise the hat itself as crinolin, which sounded romantic, but was derived from horsehair. A consignment had been destined for a furniture factory in Cologne.

  ‘Like the parachute, it’s courtesy of the British RAF,’ her black-market supplier had informed her, as he produced a whole horsetail. ‘The RAF flattened Cologne to stop the Germans enjoying the war too much and the factory I was supplying no longer exists. I’ve a truckload going spare, and I thought of you.’

  Coralie’s first year at Pettrew’s had been spent in the plait room, stitching strip-straw into rosettes. Horsetail, similarly treated, proved as fine as sisal, and could be blocked just the same. Mixing the strands gave subtle variations in colour. After perfecting the technique, the Ginslers had gone into production, turning their doll shop into an extension of Coralie’s workroom.

  She adored the result, but would Paris? From the silence that greeted the crinolins, Coralie feared not. Pencils bobbed, but eyes were doubtful. Perhaps the hats were too . . . restrained? Coralie de Lirac, restrained? One colour had been banished entirely from this collection: pink. As moderate applause greeted the end of the show, she felt like shouting, ‘If you want pink hats for summer, go to Lorienne Royer at Henriette Junot! She thieves my ideas and pumps them out six months later.’

  What she actually gave was a polite little speech. The hush was so disheartening, she thought again of Henriette Junot, who famously never attended her own collections.

  And Dietrich hadn’t come. Clearing her throat, Coralie finished in German, ‘If you would approach me or my assistants, gnädige Damen, appointments for fittings can be put in the diary. Thank you.’

  The tight smile flew off her face as a pack of soberly clad women advanced on her.

  Dietrich arrived as the afternoon show got under way. Coralie saw him slip in and gave a mock pout. He mouthed, ‘Sorry,’ as fifty or so Frenchwomen glared at him. He clicked his heels – a shade ironically, Coralie thought – and Una McBride called out, ‘If you’d come this late in 1940, we could have built another fifty miles of Maginot Line.’

  The interruption changed the mood. Solange speeded up, her turns getting faster, her poses shorter. Coralie guessed she was wanting her champagne. The chintz sun-hats were well received but once again, the crinolin models drew silence – a different texture of silence. Whereas the ‘grey mice’ had seemed uncertain how to react, the French ladies treated La Passerinette’s new-found simplicity with overt disapproval.

  In the corridor, Coralie groaned to Violaine, ‘Una’s the only person smiling.’

  Solange came in, unpinning a flaxen yellow pillbox. ‘Could you walk on your hands, do something to wake them up? I saw frost settling.’

  Coralie did the only thing she could: she showed the hats she was proud of and willed the audience to see them as she did. She’d never been so happy as the finale hove into sight. Back in the corridor, she slipped into a matelot jacket and held out a matching one for Solange. They’d go out arm in arm to show the last two models, she said, because this collection was feeling like a song with too many verses.

  Their hats were nearly identical. Solange’s tipped to the right, covering her damaged ear with a silk streamer, Coralie’s tilted to the left.

  ‘People don’t like newness,’ Violaine said, as she opened the door for them. ‘Not until somebody else gives them permission. Give them permission.’

  Coralie tried, but failing in public dampened even her vivacity. Worse, it was silent failure. Unimaginably worse even than that was seeing Serge Martel in the audience. He must have come in while she’d been out of the room. He stood on the same side as Dietrich, his hands resting on the back of a chair. Occupying that chair, a girl whose hair was lacquered i
nto profiterole curls and whose short red dress matched her lipstick.

  If ever you see Julie Fourcade, walk away.

  She and Solange had agreed to turn and pose in one, smooth movement, but Solange had also seen Serge and swerved away from him. Coralie was a step behind and, in skipping to catch up, her ankle gave way and she fell. After a moment of white-hot pain, she threw out a hopeful joke. ‘Who sank the ship under me?’

  She was helped to her feet by Dietrich, who murmured, ‘Don’t let him see your fear.’

  A short while later, she addressed her audience while holding on to the back of a chair. ‘Mesdames, please excuse the somewhat ragged ending to this show. I always was a better milliner than a mannequin. Please stay for more hospitality, and to discuss the collection –’

  Behind her, Solange snarled, ‘I will kill him. I will take his eyes out.’

  She shushed Solange, continuing ‘– to discuss the collection and take another glass of champagne. Did I already say that?’

  ‘I live to see his blood!’

  Coralie signalled urgently to Dietrich. ‘Fetch Solange a drink and keep her occupied.’ She continued her speech, but nobody was really listening.

  ‘We want the white hat you fell over in, and we want to take it now.’

  Coralie was writing an appointment in the diary and did not immediately raise her head. Following Coralie’s disjointed speech, Una had announced loudly that she adored everything she’d seen and could she have an appointment immediately, if not sooner? The frost had lifted a degree or two, and a dozen or so other women were waiting to make their appointments.

  ‘The white hat. We want it.’

  Coralie met Serge Martel’s eye. ‘That’s not possible.’ She turned to Julie. ‘You know how it works. Look, the hat won’t fit you and we can do better for you.’

  Julie pouted. Coralie wondered how she’d got hold of that hot shade of lipstick, when every other woman was reduced to melting down the stumps of old ones, mixing the ill-coloured goo with glycerin, and enjoying slippery kisses afterwards.

  ‘I want the white one.’ Julie touched her hair, as if afraid her curls were disintegrating.

  ‘And you can add some fancy roses,’ Martel said. ‘Why are your hats so boring, Mademoiselle de Lirac?’

  ‘I prefer “sophisticated”.’ She sent a silent apology to Javier, whose subtle genius had collided with her ignorance back in the summer of ’37. ‘If Julie would like to come back—’

  ‘Mademoiselle Fourcade to you. We’re getting married.’

  She swallowed her contempt. ‘If Mademoiselle Fourcade would care to book an appointment, we will create something she’ll be proud to wear and we will be proud to put our name to.’ Though how the girl would get a hat to stay on her head . . .

  ‘I want it now.’ Julie glanced up at Martel, drawing audacity from him. ‘Now,’ she said, just as Noëlle had started to do at around the age of two.

  Coralie realised where the child had got it from. ‘Not possible.’

  ‘Anything’s possible.’ Martel inspected a fingernail. ‘Julie and I are dining tonight in a restaurant with a roof terrace and that sailor hat is just right. As your lover would say, a perfect hat for a Dachterrasse. You should try the phrase out on him, when you’re alone.’ Julie giggled as Martel pulled her close and nibbled her ear. She was carrying a handbag made from three shades of leather, one of the new fashionable carry-alls, and she made sure Coralie noticed it by constantly shifting it up her arm. Something about the bag disturbed Coralie, but she couldn’t work out what it was. She just wanted the obnoxious couple out of her salon.

  When Violaine came over with a question, Coralie interrupted: ‘Violaine, can you box up the final model, the white sailor, the one I wore?’

  Behind her lenses, Violaine registered astonishment. ‘But we never—’

  ‘We’re making an exception for Mademoiselle Fourcade.’

  ‘That hat needs flowers,’ Martel chipped in. ‘I’m not having my girl looking cheap.’

  ‘Heavens, no,’ Coralie agreed. ‘Violaine, attach cabbage roses and a spray or two of jasmine. There are dove feathers too, all colours, and why not add ribbon curls? The more, the better.’

  ‘And where should I place this . . . salad?’ Mutiny edged Violaine’s tone.

  ‘On top, dead centre. That way –’ Coralie forced a smile at Julie ‘– whenever the future Madame Martel wears the hat, she will be reminded of her wedding cake.’

  That night, Coralie lay on the bed, waiting for Dietrich to join her. A forgettable day, if she could only persuade her brain to it. She knew this collection would not take off, not as previous ones had. She’d held the match to the blue touch-paper, as if to send a rocket up into the sky, and it hadn’t caught.

  ‘It’ll be a slow burn, you watch.’ Una had tried to lift her spirits but Coralie trusted her own instincts. She’d feel better if she could get Serge Martel and Julie out of her mind. Martel had paid generously for a hat that would make Julie look like a Christmas goose. And then, just as Coralie had thought the dramas were over, Lorienne Royer had turned up. She’d misremembered the start time.

  She’d brought an escort, a small Frenchman with serious spectacles and oily hair.

  ‘I know him.’ Una had sidled up to Coralie. ‘He works for the director of police. He creeps around the hospital, checking patients’ residence certificates. I hope all your people are bona fide.’

  ‘Well, they’re all French citizens.’

  ‘What he really wants to find are illegal refugees. Or, preferably, terrorists.’ Last summer, a young Frenchman had shot a German naval officer at a Métro station. Eleven Frenchmen had been sent to the firing squad to appease the Germans. It was then that Coralie had felt the heartbeat of Paris change. More attacks had followed and more reprisals. With General de Gaulle’s broadcasts from London settling in angry people’s ears, new, clandestine groups had sprung up. If you agreed with their aims, you called them ‘résistants’. Otherwise, they were terrorists. Ramon had joined such a group in the Auvergne, in the heart of France.

  Seeing Lorienne beating a path towards Violaine, Coralie had stepped in front of her. ‘Madame, you cannot expect to be welcomed here. You steal my hats, you steal my ideas. At least have the grace to copy from the other side of the window.’

  In a burst of defiance, Lorienne had dodged round her. What had passed between her and Violaine, Coralie had no idea.

  ‘She was drunk,’ Madame Thomas, who had witnessed the exchange, confided later. ‘Her tongue got the better of her. Let it rest.’

  Dietrich came in from the bathroom, bringing with him the scent of soap and toothpaste. ‘Are you staying with me all night?’

  ‘Mm. Noëlle’s with Micheline and Florian.’

  ‘Good. Shall I carry you out and put you in the bath?’

  ‘Pull me up. I’ll go under my own steam.’ She extended a hand but, instead of taking it, Dietrich got on to the bed beside her and unbuttoned her dress. She wriggled out of it and offered herself up in apple-green silk underwear. ‘I ought to wash first.’

  ‘Why? You smell quite delightful – of other women’s perfumes but also of yourself.’ He kissed her, a sensuous kiss that travelled from her throat to the inside of her thighs. So tempting to be seduced away from the business of thinking. She could see the top of his head. His hair was going the colour of wood ash but was still thick. Her chosen lover. Protector, too, but now, in every other respect, her equal. As love had once sneaked up on her uninvited, so had self-confidence.

  They made love intensely, the sighing of skin against silk the loudest sound.

  In his arms afterwards, she listened to him tell her about his day. He’d been to avenue Marigny that morning to call on Kurt Kleber and Kurt’s wife Fritzi, and to pay respects to his Luftwaffe superior, General Hanesse, who had insisted on lunch at the Ritz. After that, a rushed meeting with a man who claimed he could acquire a work of art by the Dutch master Vermeer. A painting tha
t Reichsmarschall Göring wanted badly. A painting Dietrich knew to be fake because the man had sold a near-identical one five years ago to Göring’s official art dealer, Walter Hofer.

  ‘I told him that Hofer might be duped a second time, as greedy men rarely grow wise, but please, not to waste my time.’

  Coralie had her head on his shoulder, only half listening because she was thinking of Julie’s arm around Serge Martel’s waist, and a leather bag on a plump elbow. The bag had been three colours of leather: tan, mole brown and olive. Olive. She exclaimed, ‘No – not possible!’

  Dietrich broke off. ‘More than possible. Göring idolises Dutch masters and Hofer hasn’t yet realised that people paint fakes especially for him.’

  ‘No – I’ve just realised something. That girl, Julie—’

  ‘Too much rouge. Too much everything.’

  ‘Her bag was a new-for-old. You take some worn-out ones to a leather-merchant’s and they stitch a new one from the pieces.’

  ‘And now you’re thinking that La Passerinette can branch into handbags. Good idea.’

  ‘Listen. One of the colours was olive green and,’ she rolled so she could speak straight into his ear, ‘I brought a handbag that colour from London.’

  ‘I remember. It clashed with your dress. Why did you not destroy it?’

  ‘Because it was a cheap market bag. No label, nothing to say it was British-made.’

  ‘You think Julie stole it?’

  ‘From the top of my wardrobe. I’d slung it up there.’

  ‘So, she is a thief and that is distressing in a nanny, even a former nanny. Are you fearful you left something in it?’

  ‘Yes.’ She made a face. ‘But I can’t think what.’