The Dress Thief

by Natalie Meg Evans

  ‘Madame, I’ve never seen you before in my life.’

  Verrian leaned against the desk. ‘Beryl, which door? Tradesman’s or main?’

  ‘Door?’ Beryl Theakston raided her memory. ‘Erm, the grandiose one. I didn’t know there was a tradesman’s door. Though I suppose there must be. I assure you, I gave you the letter, Miss Gower. I would not mistake you.’ She indicated Alix’s ensemble. ‘I’m rather in awe of you girls. Never a hair out of place.’

  ‘Alix wouldn’t have been wearing anything like this suit then. True?’ Verrian consulted Alix.

  ‘No. Back then I wore a brown smock. Nor did I come or go by the main door.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  Alix did. ‘The girl you gave the letter to, Madame, she was very tall? As dark as me?’

  ‘I’m sure it was you.’

  ‘Like this –’ Alix lifted her nose as high as it would go.

  ‘Yes, exactly that.’

  ‘Voilà. You gave it to Solange Antonin.’

  ‘But I asked her if she was you. She said yes.’

  ‘She would.’ Alix shrugged. ‘Poor Solange hated me. But, Madame, it’s only a letter.’

  Cruelty felt good sometimes, she thought to herself. At the words ‘only a letter’, Verrian had flinched as if acid had been flicked at him. But there – men lied; women flicked acid; the world kept turning.

  Verrian told Miss Theakston he was taking Alix upstairs. ‘Is old Sturridge in?’

  ‘No, out on assignment.’

  ‘Even better,’ said Verrian.

  *

  Alix had no idea why Verrian had asked her to his former workplace, nor why she was to bring along a wartime photograph of her father. She watched suspiciously as he adjusted the wing nuts on a piece of equipment that looked as though it belonged in a science lab.

  ‘It’s a magnifier,’ he explained. ‘Put your photo on the plate – here, face up.’ He angled the viewer to her height. ‘Now look through there.’

  She did and saw her father in his unremarkable uniform. John Gower looked so very young. For the first time the insignia on his hat and tunic were visible.

  ‘Tell me again what regiment he served in.’

  She didn’t like the terrier note in Verrian’s voice so she said nothing.

  He answered for her; ‘London Rifle Brigade – you told me at our café on the Champs-Elysées.’

  ‘You have a good memory.’

  ‘Where you’re concerned I do. Your father served in the same battalion as the Comte de Charembourg, yes?’

  ‘You make it sound like a crime.’

  ‘Before I left Paris, I had a friend in London do some research. He works in the government department dealing with war widows’ pensions and wrote to tell me what he’d found out. The comte certainly served in the Rifles, 5th battalion, known as the City of London Brigade. Recruits were mainly stockbrokers and bank employees, which makes sense as the he worked at the Banque d’Alsace on Threadneedle Street. Your father doesn’t show up in the brigade’s list, though.’ Verrian nudged her aside so he could inspect the image of John Gower. ‘Alix, there’s no kind way to say it: Jean-Yves de Charembourg and your father were never comrades in arms. Gower served in the Royal Army Medical Corps.’

  ‘He was a doctor?’

  ‘A driver, with a Field Ambulance unit. He was deployed two years into the war, in 1916. I haven’t yet found out where he was sent, but I can tell you he rose to lance corporal and was injured shortly before Armistice, when his ambulance was struck by shellfire.’ Verrian straightened up. ‘You have every reason to be proud of your father, but de Charembourg lied to you.’ He invited her to look again. ‘See for yourself – the badge on your father’s sleeve bears a red cross and there’s an RAMC insignia on his cap.’

  She was crying, so it was pointless to look again. ‘You’re trying to tell me that my father wasn’t a proper soldier.’

  ‘What on earth makes you think that? Ambulance crew were as brave as any of the men who fought at the front. Alix, I am not belittling your father.’

  But she wouldn’t be comforted. ‘I know what you’re doing. Punishing me for preferring other men to you.’

  *

  Was he punishing her? He wanted to help Alix clear the fog of her childhood so she could see the present. He wanted her free of sorrow, free to concentrate on him … so yes, he was being selfish. But enjoying the process? Far from.

  And he must see it to the end. When she retired to the ladies’ room to rinse her face, he asked Beryl to find him a Paris telephone number, quickly. The secretary wrote it for him on a card.

  He dialled, and when a young man answered he announced, ‘Verrian Haviland, wishing to speak with the Comte de Charembourg.’

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  The patterns, drawings, toiles and garments that had been taken away from Rue Jacob by the police that devastating August day were returned as suddenly on 2nd November, the day after Alix’s visit to the News Monitor. They arrived in boxes like the turnout of a lost-property cupboard. The silk velvet was ruined and Alix wept over Ma Fuite, which had cigarette burns on the skirt, then searched in vain for the pieces of coffee-coloured No. 10. Nevertheless, this was the final welcome confirmation that she would not be prosecuted. Once again, she’d escaped through some quick thinking.

  Rosa had been good as her word, dropping the keys to Alix’s private wardrobe into the water tank. She’d invited the police to retrieve them and, while they’d dithered, had climbed another flight of stairs to the atelier and tossed Adèle Charboneau’s cranberry suit out of the window. While every shelf, drawer and rail in the upper workrooms was cleared, the cranberry suit had dangled, unseen, on a hydrangea bush in the courtyard below. That had saved Alix.

  She was convinced it was that suit that had triggered the raid. Mme LeVert had fallen for Adèle Charboneau’s tears and privately agreed to make a suit ‘as near Chanel as possible’ and had then been cajoled into adding a counterfeit Chanel label. Alix had visited the address on Adèle Charboneau’s card and learned that nobody of that name had ever lived in the flat on Avenue Foch. A fake client, a good actress. The real question – who had wheeled in that tearful Trojan horse? Alix was forming a strong suspicion, but doubted she’d ever be able to prove it.

  Though the raid had taken place two-and-a-half months ago, business was still shaky. The clientele she’d begun to build up beforehand, moneyed Parisians intrigued by an ingénue designer, still mostly cold-shouldered her these days. Loyal Una continued to send English customers, and one or two of her old clients had given her the benefit of the doubt. Orders trickled in still, but never enough to clear the debts arising from her ruined collection. It was a struggle to pay her reduced staff each week. The rent fell due at Christmas, and she didn’t have the cash to buy fabric in for the next season either. If Gregory Kilpin ever guessed how dire her circumstances were, he’d foreclose on her. And a new affliction had struck: the horror of the blank page. She ought to be working on her spring–summer line for February 1939, but her creative spark had died.

  A cry – ‘Aliki, where are you?’– brought her into the salon. Mémé sat by the window, a paraffin stove a safe distance away, a pool of crochet work at her feet. A skill she’d learned as a child, which her fingers could still perform. ‘I couldn’t hear you. Will you help me to the lavatory?’

  ‘Take my arm.’ They walked across the room, Mémé’s stick tapping a slow dirge.

  ‘At breakfast you were going out to buy silk velvet, but you didn’t come to show me.’

  Alix thought, She’s back in last summer. ‘Not silk velvet this time, Mémé, plain shantung. I’ll show you when it’s delivered.’

  ‘How many models have you finished?’

  ‘Oh, twenty.’ None.

  ‘Shall you parade them to me?’

  Alix couldn’t help smiling. Mémé’s mellowing had extended to Alix’s profession. Their arguments on the evils of a seam-stress’s life had
slipped from her memory. And she’d totally forgotten about the telephone exchange.

  Verrian arrived from his office, and they retired to the flat for lunch. Alix knocked vegetables around her plate and listened to Verrian engaging Mémé in conversation. How patient he is, she thought. Not angered by human frailty. Except by mine.

  As Mémé settled for her afternoon nap, Verrian said, ‘You can’t run a business and look after your grandmother. You need a companion-nurse.’

  ‘I can’t afford one.’

  He gave her the considering look she was familiar with. Since hustling her out of the Rose Noire, he’d hardly touched her. He was impeccably restrained, but she longed for him to take her in his arms and just kiss her, as he had before.

  ‘Will you let me help?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s not your business, Verrian.’

  ‘You are my business, Alix. Get used to it.’

  *

  He presented his solution the next morning. Alix was in her office. A telephone call from Mr Pusey, Gregory Kilpin’s financial controller who was in Paris overseeing his master’s French interests, had interrupted an equally tense conversation with Mme LeVert. Banging the receiver down, Alix ran her tongue over her teeth, expecting to find a layer of enamel ground off. Pusey had gone through her quarter’s costs, invoice by invoice, right down to her purchase of tacking thread. God, if this was what Una had put up with, no wonder the woman tried to dig an escape route. Now Mme LeVert was insisting that the synthetic silk they used to line tailored garments was a false economy.

  ‘Because it needs a larger needle, Mlle Gower.’

  ‘Then use larger needles.’

  ‘The girls get used to a size and weight. Larger ones feel clumsy and quality decreases. More times than I like, I have to persuade them to unpick their work and start again. Then we have ructions.’

  Alix scanned today’s page in her diary. English clients mid-morning, so she must put flowers in the salon and change. Why had she let Rosa go? Why hadn’t she sacked Mme LeVert instead? Rosa would never have fallen for Adèle Charboneau’s tears. She remembered Javier saying, ‘A good première is worthless. Anyone can cut and measure. A great première brings that supreme ingredient – the fruits of her passions.’ He’d added wickedly, ‘Passion for cloth, passion for life and love.’

  Alix went to the window to investigate a thrubbing noise filling the courtyard. Verrian’s Hispano slid into view. Her brow creased as she saw him open the passenger door for a woman wearing a dark coat and headscarf. A little boy scrambled out. Verrian then reached into the car and brought out a shallow box, the sort that contains a fruit tart.

  Mme LeVert said, ‘And another thing—’

  ‘Madame –’ Alix turned – ‘you are called première for a reason. Please go upstairs and assert your authority.’

  *

  Two things struck Alix about Pepe Rojas García. Firstly, that he was an extraordinarily beautiful child, with lashes that cast long shadows on his cheeks. Secondly, that he called Verrian ‘Señor’ in a heartbreakingly grown-up way. And yet his mother, introduced to Alix as Celestia García y Rojas, interacted with Verrian in a way that suggested an emotional reliance. Or something deeper. It made Alix wonder – had Verrian flown down to Marseille to rescue this woman out of disinterested chivalry?

  ‘This is your work here? You are dressmaker?’ Celestia asked in broken French. Alix had invited them all into the salon. Pepe was thundering up and down its length, displaying the energy of a child confined too long.

  ‘Until rent day,’ Alix said stiffly.

  Verrian said, ‘I’ve brought Señora García y Rojas along because I think she’d be perfect to look after your grandmother. The arrangement could help you both.’

  Alix said, ‘I see.’

  He raised an eyebrow, implying, Why else did you think I brought her? He explained something of the life Celestia had led in Spain and her reasons for fleeing. ‘She has leave to remain in France, and has been working as a housekeeper. However, the lady of the house has started objecting to Pepe. It’s become rather fraught. You wouldn’t mind having a child around?’

  I haven’t agreed to have either of them, Alix thought resentfully. ‘A little boy might be too much for Mémé.’ She didn’t want this woman, with her secret sadness and her links to Verrian’s Spanish identity. ‘And, forgive me, being a housekeeper doesn’t equip a person to care for an old lady.’

  ‘Forgive me – as she’s intelligent, needs a job and I will pay half her salary, I suggest you stop looking for problems and smile. Or have you forgotten how?’

  ‘If I had something to smile about, I expect I would remember.’

  ‘Please, you speak too fast.’ Celestia looked from Alix to Verrian. ‘If I offend, you have my apology. I care for my own grandmother. I am kind with old ladies. All I ask is Pepe is welcome.’

  ‘A modest ambition, wouldn’t you say?’ Verrian was unpicking the twine that secured the cake box.

  Why not just say I’m mean-spirited? Alix fumed as she went to ask a member of staff to make tea. I might not be able to read Celestia’s expressions, but, boy, can I translate his. Returning some time later with Mémé, she found Verrian pouring tea while Pepe stood in watchful anticipation of an apple custard tart.

  ‘Tarte alsacienne,’ Verrian said, rising to shake Mémé’s hand. ‘Alix says yours were the best, but it’s shop-bought just for today.’

  Pepe’s table manners were impeccable, Alix discovered. He passed plates to the ladies and offered the sugar bowl. Then he positioned himself beside Mémé and watched her hands, clearly fascinated by the raised knuckles and bent joints. He asked something in Spanish which contained the word ‘dedos’ – fingers.

  His mother reproved him.

  Mémé made claws and wiggled them and the boy laughed.

  His mother looked embarassed. ‘I so regret, Madame. Your pardon.’

  Danielle Lutzman said gravely, ‘The Pobble who has no toes, had once as many as we. When they said, “Some day, you may lose them all,” he replied, “Fish diddle-de-dee!”’

  Pepe scrunched into giggles.

  ‘She learned that from me years ago,’ Alix said in astonishment. ‘Edward Lear – I had to say it at a school recital.’

  Mémé continued: ‘And she made him a feast at his earnest wish of eggs and buttercups fried with fish. And she said, “It’s a fact the whole world knows, that Pobbles are happier without their toes.”’

  Pepe clapped. Even Celestia laughed. She’d taken off her headscarf revealing mahogany curls. Alix was shocked at the difference it made. The woman was thirty, no more, and very pretty. Rising, she held out her hand. ‘The Pobble didn’t have three suits under construction in his workroom. Thank you for coming, Madame.’

  As she left, she heard Celestia say, ‘It is necessary to practice, no? In the way of a child, to love and to laugh.’

  *

  Alix took off the last dress she’d shown, hung it on a rail and peeled off her underwear. The latest English ladies – Manchester matrons sent by Una – had gone. Alix had paraded her autumn– winter range, ten or so models salvaged from summer’s wreckage. The ladies had promised to come back later when they’d looked around some other shops. Alix groaned softly. Rosa – where was Rosa, who could cajole stuffy or nervous women into buying one of everything because she made the process such fun?

  Alix hooked on a waist girdle and put powder-blue camiknickers over the top, not bothering with a brassière. She was contemplating which of two jersey dresses to put on – black or olive – when she heard her name called. ‘In here,’ she replied, and before she had time to add, ‘but don’t come in,’ the door opened.

  Verrian took in the blue silk, the bare arms and legs and stopped as if he’d walked into a glass wall.

  Alix grabbed the nearest dress, the black one, and held it against herself. ‘You were taking your Spanish friend home,’ she accused.

  ‘I did.’

  ‘That w
as quick. Isn’t it your habit to see a lady indoors? You used to think I couldn’t get my door open without your help. Or did life on the battlefield obliterate your manners?’

  He came right into the room, tilting her chin, then kissed her with the controlled hunger of a man who has given up on waiting. When he broke off he said with his lips taut against hers, ‘Do you mean to provoke me into proof of it? No? Then don’t ever look at me in that snooty way again.’ He reached for the olive jersey dress and thrust it into her shocked arms. ‘I’m fed up of women in black. Let’s go to your office and work out terms for Celestia.’

  ‘I haven’t agreed yet.’

  ‘Your grandmother has. After you flounced out, she and Pepe danced together in the salon. They’re inseparable already.’ He went to the door. ‘I want to be able to take you out, and much as I like Mémé, I don’t want her making a third at every restaurant table. Can you take a little time off now?’

  She toyed with saying no, but it was such hard work, being up in arms all the time. And that kiss had woken an impatience to confront the real reason she was keeping Verrian at a distance; the revulsion she felt for her time as ‘Serge’s moll’ and that rough, hashish-fuelled education she’d received at his hands. ‘Maybe. In a minute. I have to make a couple of telephone calls to suppliers.’ As they approached her office, Alix stopped dead. Her door was slightly ajar and she heard a muffled voice growling, ‘Another five hundred thousand francs, same drop-off, six o’clock tomorrow evening, Friday …’

  Somebody was using her telephone. It was the only one in the building and nobody used it without first asking her. And it wasn’t the well-spoken Violette or Mme LeVert. It was a man’s voice. A drunkard making threats through a mouthful of dust. She stepped forward but Verrian caught her, his breath against the back of her head. They heard –

  ‘You won’t pay? Then I’ll tell the world what I know.’ Coarse laughter made Alix shudder. ‘Oh, I agree, M. le Comte, Lutzman’s killing is history but I have a new hold on you. You beat Mme Lutzman in her flat and I have a witness. Somebody saw you. You left the door open. You went back. A witness will testify.’