The Milliner's Secret

by Natalie Meg Evans

  ‘Charmed to see you too.’

  ‘I thought Dietrich had killed you.’

  Teddy tapped his breast. ‘Quite solid, as you see. And, yes, I know what transpired at the Rose Noire and that I was in the frame as the arch-betrayer. Be assured, it was not me. I may tease the dear Graf – and you – with slanderous hints and libellous asides, but I am his friend eternally.’

  ‘I thought they’d chucked you into the Seine or something.’ Coralie ran to Teddy, laying her head against his chest.

  He stroked her hair. ‘It was Dietrich’s bomb-damaged friend who had the murderous intent that night. Kleber, fortunately, was decoyed to the Rose Noire while the Graf doubled back to the rue de Seine. Finding me at home in night attire, he became unspeakably domineering. Slapped my face.’

  ‘So I did, Clisson, because you needed to leave Paris at once, only you wouldn’t listen.’

  Coralie remembered Una’s report of raised voices. ‘So, when you went to find Teddy, it wasn’t to hurt him?’

  ‘I knew he was not our informant.’

  ‘I wish you’d told me!’

  She shrugged as Dietrich said, ‘How? When?’ reminding her that she’d done everything in her power to avoid him. ‘Where did you hide him?’

  Teddy answered. ‘The dear Graf put me on a train to Dreux. I have been living in the gardener’s cottage in the grounds of my château, incognito. Tomorrow,’ theatricality fell away, ‘I go to Switzerland because Graf von Elbing fears I may still be in danger.’ He turned to Dietrich. ‘Does the Freiin von Silberstrom like cats?’

  ‘Not particularly.’

  ‘You’re going to Ottilia? Noëlle’s there,’ Coralie said eagerly.

  Teddy smiled. ‘I know, and I’m sure it will be at least eighteen pages.’

  ‘What will be?’

  ‘The letter you will ask me to take to our little sprite. Get to it, as I cannot linger. Goodness, my dear—’

  She’d burst into sobs, emotion finally catching up with her. ‘I’ve lost everyone, Teddy.’

  Teddy gently detached her. ‘You have not. Though our friend here has more layers than an onion – and the onion’s talent for stimulating tears – you still have him and must never be afraid of him. Peel him, my dear. Make him reveal everything, and once you have done that, stand by him.’

  CHAPTER 31

  In her villa in Hohen Neuendorf in north-east Germany, Hiltrud von Elbing woke with a painful neck because she’d fallen asleep in her chair. Her knitting lay in her lap.

  Voices in the hallway alerted her to a visitor.

  ‘Who is it, Vati?’ she called, pushing the half-made sleeve into her knitting bag, then pulling down the cuffs of her jersey to hide the puckered scars that disfigured her wrists.

  Her father opened the door. ‘A visitor, Hiltrud.’

  ‘Yes, I know, but who – ah—’ The tupp-tupp of a walking-stick, the uncertain shuffle, announced the visitor’s identity. Finding a gracious smile from somewhere, Hiltrud rose and walked forward to greet her mother-in-law. ‘Hannelore, you are welcome. How did you get here, though?’

  ‘By train. They are still running, despite the destruction.’

  ‘But so far, in this cold? And you so soon out of hospital.’

  ‘Everybody helps me. Soldiers, passengers, even some French labourers handed me down from the carriage, like a parcel. It was fun. Certainly, it beats sitting alone in my flat, waiting for British and American bombers.’

  This was a long speech for the dowager Gräfin von Elbing, and much of it was slurred. Her face drooped and her right foot turned inwards.

  ‘How did you get from the station?’

  ‘Mm?’ The dowager leaned on her stick as she made her way to the sofa. ‘I paid a man to bring me in his wheelbarrow. Your face, my dear. I paid a man to bring me in his car, better? Is this one going to loom over me?’ Ernst Osterberg had shadowed her in case she fell. ‘I don’t want him next to me. He snuffles.’

  Hiltrud made a face to her father, begging him not to react. ‘Vati, could you make us coffee?’ She said to her mother-in-law, ‘It’s awful stuff, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Then why offer it? I’ll have schnapps, Osterberg.’

  Ernst Osterberg left, muttering, ‘Since when did I become the butler?’

  Hiltrud sat down again, twitching at her cuffs. ‘Hasn’t the weather turned bitter? Will we ever see spring?’

  ‘No small-talk, I have not the reserves. I want to know why you are still in Germany, Hiltrud.’

  ‘Where else would I be? My father is here. Claudia can still come home when she has time off. And Waldo—’

  ‘Waldo’s dead, and weeping over his grave every Sunday won’t change that.’

  ‘Don’t. Please don’t.’ Hiltrud pressed herself back in her chair, wanting distance between herself and this drooping, wrinkled reminder of Dietrich. Her father came in with the schnapps, his expression saying clearly, Alcohol before lunch. I am humouring dissolute customs for your sake, Hiltrud.

  Oh, good God, what if her mother-in-law meant to stay? Hiltrud made a mental sweep of her kitchen cupboard. Dried mushrooms, preserved apples, a jar of pickled eggs. Hardly lunchtime fare for a woman who used to dine in the best houses in Berlin, who’d travelled through Europe in private railway carriages, guest of princes and industrialists. She remembered, then, the reason she’d become upset a few moments ago. ‘I am happy to see you, Hannelore, but please do not speak lightly of my son.’

  ‘My grandson. My son’s son. Of course I may speak of him. Put that tray down, Osterberg, and leave us be.’

  Ernst Osterberg told her he’d stay where he damned well liked in his own house.

  ‘My son’s house. Graf von Elbing bought this house with his inheritance from his father and don’t you forget it.’

  ‘I heard that the money came from the von Silberstrom coffers. Stick your nose up in the air, but there was a time you ¬weren’t above taking handouts from a Jew.’ Osterberg turned to his daughter. ‘You know this old fiend hid Max von Silberstrom in her house when the Gestapo wanted him? In her bed, knowing her.’

  ‘Vati, please! Forgive him, Hannelore.’

  ‘I excuse him. One cannot ask a turnip to be a China orange. But your memory is awry, Osterberg. It was Max’s father Bernard who was my good friend. As for my bed, for at least twenty years it has been as empty as your head.’

  When her father had stamped out, Hiltrud poured schnapps and the smell of peach-stones filled the air. Her mother-in-law’s unflinching gaze was unsettling and she almost dropped the decanter.

  ‘Poor Hiltrud, are you not getting any better?’

  ‘I think so. My doctors say so.’

  ‘Then why are you here and not with my son?’

  Hiltrud repeated doggedly, ‘Because my daughter comes home when she can. Claudia expects me to be here, and my father needs me.’ She’d overfilled one of the glasses. She’d better take it; her mother-in-law had suffered two strokes and now found it difficult to grip small things. ‘I am still Claudia’s Mutti, and a housewife.’

  ‘You are also Gräfin von Elbing. Listen to me.’ The old Gräfin took her glass in trembling fingers. ‘Claudia is eighteen, with her own life now. Your father can fend for himself, but Dietrich is in danger.’

  ‘We’re the ones in danger! Does Paris get bombed? No! They eat four meals a day in France, Claudia has been told, and all the coal that is supposed to come to Germany feeds their fires. Fires in their grates even in the summer. They burn coal with their windows open so that we go without!’

  ‘The French are for the French. Why should that surprise you? Answer a question. Do you want to lose Dietrich?’

  Did she? Hiltrud wasn’t sure. She hated him so powerfully, the mere sound of his name made her pulse jerk. But lose him? ‘No, I think not.’

  ‘Good, because he is involved in a conspiracy to assassinate the Führer.’

  Schnapps spattered the carpet. ‘Have you lost your wits, Hannelore?’ Th
ey had not expected the old woman to recover from the second stroke, and if this was how her mind was going, it would have been better had she not. ‘Who spoke this treachery?’

  ‘Dietrich. He thought I was dying last November and made a confession at my bedside. A very full confession, though I am not certain he expected me to understand it. There is a group in Paris called –’ the old lady summoned a word ‘– Dachterrasse. His purpose in returning to Berlin was to confirm the allegiance of this group with a more powerful one here in Germany. I had heard he often visited army headquarters on Bendlerstrasse. Now I understand why.’

  Hiltrud drew herself up, wishing she had not put on an old dress this morning and such thick stockings. Shrivelled as her mother-in-law was, she put Hiltrud to shame in her black two-piece and pearls. ‘You were at the gates of death. I suggest that you misunderstood Dietrich, who, after all, has taken an oath of allegiance to the Führer. What you are suggesting is foul and dishonourable and I will put it down to your infirmity. I will not hear another word.’

  ‘There is something in my pocket. Take it out, see if it changes your mind.’

  A moment later Hiltrud was thinking, The old woman has certainly gone mad. It was a piece of card cut from an outdated desk calendar. A French one at that.

  ‘Other side,’ her mother-in-law said.

  Hiltrud turned it over and spoke the unfamiliar words. ‘La Passerinette.’

  ‘A hat shop in Paris.’

  Below were numbers, one to thirty-six. After each number, more words in French. ‘I never pretended I could speak foreign languages,’ Hiltrud snapped. Belle. Séduction. Caprice. Plume. Rose. ‘What does it mean?’

  ‘It is the running order of a collection – a parade of hats. The shop is owned by your husband’s mistress.’ The old Gräfin acknowledged Hiltrud’s recoil. ‘When in Paris, Dietrich sleeps with a milliner. I said he made a full confession, didn’t I? It wouldn’t matter, except that this female seems to have charmed him to the point that he spoke of marrying her one day. She is blonde, tall and lovely, so it is perhaps not so remarkable that he should want to make her his wife.’

  ‘His wife – how?’

  ‘After your conduct last year, he might reasonably expect to be a widower soon enough.’

  ‘That is cruel.’ Now Hiltrud wished she’d put on a blouse with button cuffs. ‘I was not myself last year.’

  ‘Well – are you awake now? Dietrich is being drawn into a conspiracy for which the penalty is death. I cannot travel, so you must go to Paris and bring him back to his senses or, God knows, it may be the firing squad.’

  Firing squad? Her husband? She wanted to sink down, and beat blood from the floor. Everything around her became slow and unreal. In the next room, her father put a record on the gramo¬phone, a Volkslied. The siren-wail tenor mixed with her rising voice. ‘He can’t betray us! He can’t marry a Frenchwoman. He’s married to me!’

  ‘Then why do you not wear your ring? The ruby one I passed to Dietrich for you, the one my mother-in-law passed to me.’

  ‘I gave that back to him.’

  ‘Ah, yes. When he refused to join the Nazi Party. I should have said, where is it now?’

  Hiltrud had no idea. But she understood her mother-in-law’s motive. The old woman was goading her into going to Paris to save Dietrich from dishonour and adultery. She doubted she could save Dietrich from the first, given his tepid allegiance to the Reich. But the second . . . loathing him as she did, she had never expected to be replaced. She minded. Minded very much.

  CHAPTER 32

  Coralie had expected Teddy to go by train to Switzerland, and so he would, but Dietrich was driving him to Lyon, the last major French city before the Swiss border.

  ‘He must not be seen by anyone who may recognise him. He must melt away, and the world think him dead.’

  ‘Why?’ Coralie demanded. She’d been given an hour to write her letters and wrap presents and was trying to decide which hat to box up for Ottilia.

  ‘I have my reasons,’ Dietrich said, ‘but I won’t divulge them. Not yet.’

  ‘Something else it’s safer for me not to know?’ Her exasperation bubbled over.

  ‘Exactly. Send the green hat to Ottilia. It’s a colour that suits her. Have you chosen gifts for everyone, now?’

  ‘One last thing.’

  The men left shortly after, taking Voltaire in his basket, the longest letter Coralie had ever written in her life, a hatbox for Ottilia and a beret for Noëlle. Cherry-red with a pheasant feather, it had been intended for somebody else’s child. Coralie had sewn a La Passerinette label into it, spearing her finger in her haste.

  She then closed up for the weekend and went home.

  ‘Manna, come on! Come on, my lad, come on . . . Yeees!’

  Now where had that come from? Coralie saw, clear as yesterday, a white, rain-washed rail and jockeys flying past in their spattered silks. She saw her mother’s hat dripping dye on to an angry face. Derby Day 1925, and more rain had fallen then than it had on Noah’s Ark. The fact that her daughter had just picked the winning horse seemed only to provoke Florence Masson further.

  Seated by the front window, eyes closed, Coralie remembered her father lofting her on to his shoulders. Hup, petite! ‘Manna from heaven! Manna from heaven! Ten pounds I put on that horse to win! Our girl’s a natural!’

  ‘That’s right, Jac, encourage the kid to be a gambler. When she’s a penniless drunk in the alley, picking up the whores’ drawers for twopence a time, we’ll know who to thank. I’m off.’

  Florence had stormed away – slipping in the mud. ‘Some bloody day out this is!’

  ‘More fool you,’ Jac returned, drunk on the joy of winning. ‘Boots next time.’

  Florence had got to her feet, her yellow and green outfit plastered. ‘I hate you. I hate you to the marrow of my bones, Jac Masson. Lay me in my grave, and I’ll still be hating you. And d’you know what?’ She’d strained forward like a dog at a fight. ‘I’ve got somebody better. He’s a gentleman, an actor, and he knows how to treat a woman. I’ve had enough of your drink, your stinking workshop, your sulks and your bloody fists.’

  And that was the last Cora had seen of her mother.

  Coralie opened her eyes. Perfectly evident what had triggered the memory. Dietrich had had twenty-four daffodils delivered to her that morning, even though it was a Sunday and the previous evening he’d set off for Lyon. She’d put them in front of the window as pursed buds. Four hours on, they were singing like canaries. Their scent shouted, ‘Springtime!’ even though winter had still two weeks to run.

  Turning her eye inwards to a rainy Epsom Downs, Coralie saw her mother’s yellow shoes picking across emerald grass. She frowned. That wasn’t right. For a start, the Derby crowd had trampled the grass to muddy porridge and Florence’s shoes had sunk deep. They’d turned brown as high as the instep. And then, any dignity her mother might have salvaged as she stalked away had been spoiled when her heel came off.

  The cine-film sequence in Coralie’s head went blurry at that point. The only clear and solid fact was her mother’s shoe heel in a tin, in a kitchen cupboard in Barnham Street. How had that heel got from Epsom Downs to Barnham Street?

  A knock at the street door brought back the bright reality of Paris. There was a car at the kerb, the car Dietrich had regularly borrowed when they lived together at rue de Vaugirard. Running downstairs, she opened the door and pulled him inside. They said nothing until they were upstairs, the door locked behind them. She fell into his arms. ‘I wasn’t expecting you till tomorrow.’

  ‘In the end I left Teddy at the station in Dijon. He knew how badly I wanted to be back here.’

  Back here . . . back together? ‘Trust him,’ Teddy had instructed her and she so wanted to. ‘Peel him.’ She wanted to do that, too. Was she ready to be his lover again? Would it be forgivable, honourable, even?

  Why not begin safely with small-talk? ‘Will Teddy stay with the von Silberstroms?’

&nb
sp; ‘Until he finds a flat somewhere in Geneva. He is excited at the prospect of finally viewing Ottilia’s art collection. That was all he could talk about during the journey.’

  ‘I thought those paintings were in Germany.’

  ‘I never said so, Coralie.’

  ‘Don’t play games. You sent them back to your home town, to Hohen Neuendorf.’

  ‘When?’

  She smacked his arm. ‘You told me so, and Teddy said you were sending the collection to Germany as a gift for the Nazis.’

  ‘Teddy says a great many things. The truth? I sent Ottilia’s collection to Neuendorf in Switzerland. Her brother Max has a hunting lodge near a village of that name, and the paintings live under his roof.’ Dietrich drew her face up to his. ‘They are safe. I always said that, no?’

  ‘No. I mean, yes. I didn’t know there was more than one Neuendorf.’

  ‘I should think there are plenty. There is even one in Canada.’

  ‘You could have told me so before! I think you should let Teddy buy those Dürers to make up.’

  ‘Absolutely not, because they are not genuine works. All this time, I have been protecting Teddy from gross humiliation and a bad bargain.’

  ‘The Dürers are fakes?’

  ‘Good ones, but not good enough.’

  She kissed him lightly on the mouth. ‘For not being a swindler after all.’

  ‘If I am to be kissed for everything I am not, should we retire to bed?’

  She felt the tug of nature, the counter-force of conscience. There were so many objections to their relationship. Yet she loved this man. Her body had no doubts so she opened negotiations with her conscience by saying, ‘I’m not going to apologise for ringing Teddy to warn him that night. I really did think you were going to kill him. As for Kurt, he had murder in his eyes.’

  Dietrich let her go and threw himself down on the sofa. Then he got up again, stripping off coat, hat, driving gloves. When he sat back down, he stretched the cramp out of his limbs. ‘I left the flat that night every bit as angry, but not as single-minded. I gave the car keys to Kurt and sent him up to boulevard de Clichy before walking the short distance to rue de Seine.’