The Wedding Dress

by Mary Burchell

  It was difficult to make any firm plans of her own because her guardian had not yet outlined his ideas for her future. But she cheered herself by the recollection that the Otways came to Paris sometimes. Philip because he was a successful artist and had artistic connections there, and Mrs. Otway because she bought her clothes there—even, Loraine thought she remembered, at Florian’s.

  So she refused to torment herself with the idea that any real break had taken place. She must be patient—just as one had had to be throughout the terms at school—and presently Philip would be there again and all would be well.

  At the reception after the wedding—held in one of the smaller but most exclusive hotels in Paris—Loraine found herself the object of a gratifying amount of admiration.

  Even her guardian said to her, “You looked absolutely charming, Loraine.” And, though she thought it was perhaps more satisfaction at her having done him credit than anything else, she warmed to the smile of approval which he bestowed on her before he went to speak to more interesting people.

  Then Madame Florian herself came up to tell Loraine how beautifully she had played her part. And when Loraine ventured to congratulate her shyly on her perfect English, she laughed and said:

  “But I am English, my dear. I was an English mannequin in Florian’s dress house. And then he married me.” It sounded deliciously simple and romantic, Loraine thought, put that way, and she looked at Madame Florian with interest.

  “Isn’t it awfully difficult to get into a French dress house if you’re English?” she inquired.

  “Not if you have what the designer happens to want.”

  “And what is that?” Loraine asked, with real curiosity.

  “Oh”—Gabrielle Florian laughed—it’s difficult to define, and not always just the same quality. There must be a certain amount of grace and—charm, I suppose, and the ability to wear clothes, of course. But, over and above that, there has to be a subtle something which moves a great designer to fresh inspiration.”

  “And you have that?” Loraine looked impressed.

  “I’m not sure that I have,” was the frank reply. “I wasn’t a professional mannequin, chosen from a crowd. I was substituted at the last moment for someone who had had an accident a few days before the Collection was to open. I think I owed my chance to a fortunate likeness and the right measurements. Then, before I really found my place in the next Collection, I married Florian. So we never found out.” But she laughed again, on a happy note which suggested she was satisfied to remain unknowing of her real qualifications since she had achieved her heart’s desire instead.

  “Then I suppose”—Loraine glanced across at the beautiful bride, now the centre of congratulation and admiration—“I suppose Marianne had that indefinable quality you speak of?”

  “Oh, no. Not at all, according to Florian himself. She’s a lovely, charming girl and a perfect darling. But not a designer’s source of inspiration. That’s something quite different. It’s—” Gabrielle gestured a little helplessly, a curiously French movement, to show how impossible it was to explain the inexplicable.

  “But Monsieur Florian was Marianne’s employer, surely?”

  “Oh, yes, of course. But she was in the boutique downstairs. A wonderful saleswoman and a great attraction there.”

  “I see.” Loraine considered that thoughtfully, her wide grey eyes reflective between their smoky dark lashes. “Then I wonder just what—”

  “Mademoiselle, you played your part very well today.” It was Florian himself who had come up unexpectedly to add his word of approval.

  “Oh, thank you, monsieur.” Loraine glanced at him shyly. “I tried to walk and stand as Madame Moisant had told us.”

  “No, no.” He shook his head and regarded her with that faint, reflective smile which always meant either that he was intensely interested or cleverly hiding the fact that he was bored. “You did nothing so deliberate and tiresome as that. You had completely absorbed Madame Moisant’s advice so that you were able to forget about it all when the time came. And quite rightly so. You were thinking of something quite different from the necessity of standing correctly behind the bride, weren’t you? That was why your face was interesting.”

  “Well, I—I—How did you know, monsieur?” asked Loraine, coloring slightly.

  “Because it is my business to know these things,” Florian replied with a dry little smile. “Of what were you thinking, petite?”

  “Do I—have to tell you?”

  “Not necessarily. But I should like to know.”

  “Then I was thinking of someone—of two people, I mean—whom I like very much. And I was wondering when I would see him—them again.”

  If Florian noticed the two slight corrections—and without doubt he did—he made no sign of doing so. He merely inquired, with an air of kindly interest:

  “What exactly are you doing here in Paris, mademoiselle?”

  She thought it was nice of him to inquire so much after her welfare, which was the effect that Florian had on most people when he was finding out something he wanted to know.

  “I’m not doing anything specific,” Loraine explained easily. “My father died recently and made Mr. Cardine my guardian. As he lives here, the most obvious thing was for me to join him until—until it was decided what to do with me.”

  She was unaware that a faintly melancholy shade crossed her face at that point. But the observant Frenchman watching her missed nothing. He said, aside, to his wife in French:

  “The face is wonderfully expressive.”

  Gabrielle looked surprised. So did Loraine, for her French was quite equal to what Florian had said. And, opening her grey eyes wide again, she said:

  “Do you mean—my face, monsieur?”

  “Your face, mon enfant.”

  “Is it?” She put up her hand to her cheek, in a doubtful, questing little gesture, as though she might almost be able to feel the quality which Florian had mentioned.

  “The movement of the hands too. You see what I mean?” Again the Frenchman spoke to his wife, as though Loraine were a child who would not follow.

  “Yes—I think so.” Gabrielle looked half doubtful, half amused. “There’s something innocent and touching about her.”

  “Is that it?” He frowned consideringly. “I don’t know. It’s something—indefinable.”

  At this magic word, which had recently taken on such a very special meaning, Loraine suddenly found her breath coming rather quickly.

  “Monsieur Florian!” Her very pretty speaking voice ran up on to a slightly higher note in her excitement. “Are you saying that I have a—an indefinable quality about me?”

  “Just so.” He nodded almost absently, while obviously pursuing his own line of thought. “And she walks well and holds herself admirably,” he murmured. Then his tone became brisk and businesslike as he said, “Tell me, mademoiselle, does Monsieur Cardine of the chilly manner and remote ways intend to maintain you in comfortable idleness, or do you plan to make your own living?”

  “Monsieur Cardine of the chilly manner and remote ways,” replied Loraine, who liked the description, “is certainly not going to maintain me, in any sense at all. I don’t know yet what my father left—not more than enough to provide me with a small income, I imagine—and this Monsieur Cardine—I mean my cousin Paul.—will presumably administer for me until I’m twenty-one. But, for my own part, I certainly intend to earn my own living, rather than be dependent—”

  “Bon!” Florian had heard all he wanted to hear and checked any further development of the theme. “Then I offer you the chance of work in my firm.”

  “Monsieur Florian—!” She was suddenly speechless.

  “You like the idea?” He smiled, that truly wonderful smile which he kept for moments of real kindness or very important business.

  “Like it? I love it! Why, I would willingly pick up pins in your dress house if I thought—”

  “Not willingly, mademoiselle,” Florian interr
upted with good-humored irony. “It is a tedious and back-breaking job which no one embarks upon willingly. But we will not waste you on that. I need a mannequin for the new Collection. We go on show in July, as you probably know, and we have not too much time. But it is decided, then, that you come to me as my youngest mannequin?”

  “Why—why, yes—please. At least—I must speak to my guardian first. But I mean to, anyway. Only—oh, please wait one moment while I speak to him.”

  Loraine darted across the room, threading her way easily and skilfully among the crowds, until she arrived, a trifle breathless, beside Paul Cardine, who was standing by one of the long windows, not engaged in conversation with anyone at that moment.

  “Paul—” She actually caught hold of his arm in her eagerness. “Paul, something terribly exciting has happened—”

  A laughing group pushed past just then, so that she was pressed quite close against him, and she saw him glance down at her eager, flushed face with an almost startled air.

  “Oh—I’m sorry—” She suddenly became aware that she was eagerly digging her fingers into his arm, and she also realized surprisedly that it was the first time she had actually touched him. “I didn’t mean to grip you like that, But—do listen! Monsieur Florian wants me to be a mannequin in his dress house!”

  “Florian does?” He looked incredulous. “You must be mistaken. You’re only a child.”

  “I’m not a child! I’m eighteen,” said Loraine indignantly.

  “Are you?—Well, yes, of course, I remember you are.” He glanced down at her almost sombrely then and, in some queer way, as though he saw her for the first time. “But that’s still awfully young, Loraine, to be holding your own in such a raffish and competitive world.”

  “Monsieur, you do my dress house less than justice,” observed Florian’s voice behind her, and she turned with some relief to see that the great designer had come to reinforce her own plea. “There is nothing particularly raffish about it, and in many ways it is quite distressingly humdrum and respectable. Behind the scenes, of course,” he added. “The only danger which Mademoiselle Lorraine will run will be that of being worked off her feet.”

  “Well, that never hurt anyone,” observed Paul Cardine, with a slight and unexpected smile. And he looked down at Loraine again and rather absently put his hand over the fingers which still eagerly gripped his arm. “You want to do this thing very much, Loraine?”

  “Oh, of course! I’m absolutely set on doing it. Only I thought I would ask—tell you about it first,” she added, with belated diplomacy.

  He seemed faintly amused by that.

  “The rights of a guardian are not very clearly defined, are they?” he remarked drily.

  “Well—” she began doubtfully. But Florian interrupted to say with frank, but quite friendly, curiosity:

  “Surely, monsieur, you are rather young to be made the guardian of a young girl?”

  “Yes, of course. The whole thing is very odd and irregular,” the other man agreed, a trifle impatiently. “I can act as trustee, of course, but as for my being a guardian with any real authority over her, Loraine and I are both uncomfortably aware that the position is untenable and even faintly ridiculous.”

  “I wasn’t uncomfortable about it,” said Loraine, which made both the men laugh. “I mean—I didn’t even know that was how you felt about it.”

  “Did you think I was at ease in my role?” he inquired drily, but there was a glimmer of amusement in the blue eyes which looked down at her.

  “N-no. At least—I just thought you were completely fed up at having to have me,” she explained simply and without rancor.

  There was an odd little silence. Then he said:

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to give quite that impression.”

  “The air is clearing admirably,” observed Florian. “But we still have not settled the point which interests me most. As a guardian or trustee—with or without rights—are you now satisfied, monsieur, that Mademoiselle Loraine should work as a mannequin in my irreproachably respectable establishment?”

  “I thought Loraine had already decided that and was only pausing to tell me of her decision,” replied Paul Cardine a trifle disagreeably.

  But, on an impulse she could never afterwards explain, Loraine quixotically put the whole project in doubt at that point by saying:

  “I didn’t make a decision. I was asking you for your permission.” And then she suddenly put her cheek against the arm she was holding and said, “Please, Paul.”

  There was no mistake about the startled quality of the silence which greeted that. Then he said, “You have my permission.” But he gently and determinedly disengaged his arm at that point, and turned away to speak to Roger, who had just come up.

  “Bravissimo!” remarked Florian, but whether in satisfaction at the general result, or amused approval of her technique, Loraine was not quite sure. In any case, it hardly mattered. At the moment, all she could take in was the glorious, incredible fact that she was to work in the great house of Florian.

  “Monsieur Florian, when do I start?” Her flushed eager face and her shining grey eyes made the famous designer smile.

  “On Monday. And let me warn you that it is a hard, wearisome, back-breaking job at times. It is not amusing to stand still for hours while I drape and pin material and then change it all and perhaps swear at you.”

  “Oh, monsieur! Are you trying to discourage me now?”

  “No, mademoiselle. I am merely giving you a healthy reminder that behind all the beauty and glamor of a dress show there is an infinite amount of hard, slogging, unromantic work. When you sit there, watching an apparently leisurely mannequin drift elegantly past—”

  “I’ve never done that,” interrupted Loraine. “I’ve never attended a dress show.”

  “You’ve never attended—?” For a moment the Frenchman seemed to glimpse a strange world beyond his ken. “But where have you been, mon enfant?”

  “At school,” said Loraine humbly.

  “At school?” repeated Florian, and then he laughed more heartily than was often the case with him. “At school! But how charming! And that, of course, is why you look as you do. I am indeed fortunate.”

  He patted her cheek sharply, but not unkindly.

  “There—go now and speak to Marianne who is signalling to you. Until Monday—” And, with a slight, pleasant gesture of farewell, he left to rejoin his wife.

  Loraine, half charmed and half puzzled by the way he had received the reference to her schooldays, went immediately to Marianne.

  “Darling, it’s time I slipped away to change,” the bride whispered. “I hope I’m not tearing you away from anything that’s madly interesting.”

  “Oh, no. It’s all settled, anyway,” said Loraine, looking starry-eyed and supremely contented.

  “I’ll tell you later,” Loraine promised, as she and Marianne made their way from the room and then, by private lift, to the bedroom suite which the hotel had put at the bride’s disposal.

  “It’s been wonderful!” Marianne declared, as Loraine helped her to lift the beautiful, delicate headdress from her head. “I’ve enjoyed every moment of it. They always say you’re too nervous to enjoy your own wedding. But I’ve adored mine! Dear Florian—it was largely owing to him, I’m sure, that absolutely everything went without a hitch.”

  “I imagine that everything he undertakes goes without a hitch,” said Loraine, carefully unzipping the exquisite dress.

  “We-ell, I don’t know about that.” Marianne stepped out of the incredible cloud of beauty which was her wedding dress. “In the salon itself there can be hitch after hitch, and the first day the Collection is shown is usually pure hell. I used to cherish a desire to be a mannequin once. But now I thank heaven I was only in the boutique. Enough can happen there, goodness knows! But oh, the crises, the tears, the intrigues, the jealousies of the salon itself. Why—what’s the matter, Loraine? You look—odd, somehow.”

  “It�
��s nothing,” said Loraine bravely, “except that I’ve just agreed to be a mannequin in Florian’s salon.”

  “Oh, no!” Marianne looked dismayed, and then impressed, and then began to laugh, in spite of herself. “I say, I’m sorry to have told you such bogy tales, and of course it’s the most stupendous compliment, to have been chosen like that. Do you mean that Florian just—picked you out and offered you the job?”

  “Yes. I—I suppose one would describe it like that.”

  “But my dear Loraine, how exciting! It’s—why, it’s the most incredible thing! An absolutely unknown girl—almost a schoolgirl. It’s comparable to the time when he rushed Gabrielle in at the last moment, to save his show. And it happened at my own wedding! How lovely!”

  And she leant forward and kissed Loraine, before slipping into the deceptively simple, but entrancing, hyacinth blue dress and jacket which Florian had considered proper for her going-away outfit.

  “Then you don’t think I’m going to have such a harrowing time, after all?” Loraine smiled, but there was a shade of anxiety in her tone.

  “Well—” Marianne turned from the mirror, her comb in her hand. “I don’t know quite what to say to you, Loraine. I don’t want to scare you, and yet—you’re such a child, somehow.”

  “I’m not. I’m eighteen,” said Loraine, as she had said to her guardian.

  “I know. But there are different grades of eighteen. At eighteen, I’m sure Lisette, for instance”—she spoke half to herself—“has forgotten more than you’ll ever know.”

  “Lisette?”

  “One of Florian’s mannequins. I had trouble with her. She’s the kind of girl who makes trouble as a bee gathers honey. It’s something between an instinct and a hobby.”

  “And is she still—there?”

  “Oh, yes, of course. She’s altogether too unusual and striking for Florian to dispense with her for anything less than murder. And even that he’d hush up if it took place just before opening day,” Marianne declared cheerfully. “But just keep to yourself, Loraine, and don’t believe more than a third of what anyone tells you and—oh, I suppose you’d better consult your guardian if there’s any real trouble.”