The Wedding Dress

by Mary Burchell

  “Wonderful,” he agreed. “Can you bring yourself to eat some dinner now, do you think?”

  “Oh, yes, please! I’m ravenous,” Loraine declared. “I was too nervous to eat much at lunch. And anyway, there didn’t seem to be much time.”

  “Well, don’t let them starve you,” said her guardian good-humoredly. “How did you get on with the other girls?”

  “Very well. Except for one.” Her face shadowed a little as she remembered the nasty brush with Lisette.

  “You must tell me about her over dinner,” Paul suggested.

  And so, over their excellent dinner, Loraine told him about Lisette’s jealous outburst when Julie’s dresses had been assigned to Loraine, after all. But she said nothing about the disagreeable way Lisette had catechised her with regard to the night of the Opera Gala. There was nothing she could tell her guardian about that.

  The next day lacked the drama and thrills of the first day, of course. On the other hand, it was considerably less harrowing, and Loraine found herself quite naturally settling into the routine of the great dress house.

  In the morning she was called on to display two of her models for a private customer, and as the afternoon hour approached for the beginning of the dress show, the now familiar tide of excitement began to rise within her.

  She was not so nervous this time. After all, nothing like so much hung on this afternoon’s performance. But, even so, she stood trembling slightly with excitement and eagerness, as she awaited her turn.

  Lisette, indescribably provocative in a sea-green tailleur, drifted off the stage and Clotilde stepped through the curtains, to display the number which came before Loraine’s black suit. And then, as Lisette passed, she said carelessly:

  “Your beau is out front there.’

  “My—What beau?” Loraine felt her throat tighten.

  “The one who came in and kissed you at the Opera.”

  “Philip!” exclaimed Loraine, and then could have bitten her tongue, for it was not part of her intention to give away the smallest bit of information about her affairs to Lisette.

  “So he’s Philip, is he?” Lisette smiled thoughtfully. “Yes, I remember now. I thought I’d seen him before. He’s Philip Otway, the artist, isn’t he?”

  “Number Fourteen,” hissed Madame Moisant warningly, and she shot an angry glance in Loraine’s direction, to let her know that she was not showing the proper degree of readiness.

  Guiltily, Loraine moved forward and, as Madame Moisant announced, “Number Fourteen”—this time in honeyed accents—she parted the curtains and stepped out on to the small stage.

  Here she paused for a moment, as she had been instructed, before slowly and gracefully walking the length of the centre platform. And, as she did so, she saw that not only Philip, but Mrs. Otway too, sat at the end of the room, smiling approvingly at her.

  Loraine was not at all sure how much one was supposed to show that one was aware of anyone in the audience, so that the smile of recognition which she gave them was shy and brief. But because Philip was watching her, she walked indeed like a princess, and she told herself she had been right, hadn’t she? when she had pretended that anything could happen when one wore the black suit.

  Even when she turned and was on her way back, she knew that his smiling glance followed her, and she thought that no girl could ask more than to appear before the man she loved in one Florian model after another. He could hardly think her a retiring schoolgirl now!

  If the previous afternoon had been wildly exciting, this one was heartwarming, and Loraine enjoyed every moment of it. Towards the end of the show, Florian came in, and she saw him speak to Mrs. Otway, with the particular air which meant that she was a well-liked customer.

  She must have said something to him about knowing Loraine, for Florian smiled when Loraine next appeared and, as she turned at the end of the room, she heard him say:

  “Yes, she is very promising. You must have a word with her afterwards.”

  Philip leaned forward then, and she thought she heard him say something about “more than a word”. She dared not linger, but she returned to the dressing-room fairly confident that he would find a way of arranging things the way he wanted them.

  Sure enough, almost as soon as the show was over, Loraine was summoned back to the salon, now empty except for the Otways and Madame Moisant, who said with the graciousness she reserved for favored customers:

  “Here is the little Loraine, madame. Petite, you have visitors from England, it seems.”

  “Darling child!” Mrs. Otway, who was still a very beautiful woman indeed, enveloped Loraine in an expensively scented but genuinely tender embrace. “I simply couldn’t believe it when Philip told me you were working here as a mannequin.”

  “A very new one,” Loraine said, smiling, as she kissed Mrs. Otway and then turned to give her hand to Philip.

  “We all have to be new once,” observed Madame Moisant academically. But Philip said immediately:

  “The amazing thing is that Loraine seems so completely professional and at ease.”

  “Monsieur Florian would not have taken her otherwise,” Madame Moisant smiled thinly. “We have no room for the amateur here. Loraine will do very well if she works hard. And now, madame, which were the models that you wanted to see again?”

  “The last two coats which Odette wore. And perhaps the one with the wide mink cuffs,” replied Mrs. Otway promptly.

  Then, as Madame Moisant went away to fetch Odette and the coats, she turned to her son and said:

  “If you’ve had enough of feminine clothes for one afternoon, Philip, we will excuse you.”

  “I’m afraid I have to go.” He smiled down apologetically at Loraine, but in his handsome eyes there was a faintly puzzled look, as though, even now, he could not quite reconcile his recollections of the lonely schoolgirl with the apparently poised and lovely creature who seemed so much at home in Florian’s salon.

  “Oh—I’m sorry.” She was as naively frank about that as if she were still a schoolgirl.

  “So am I.” He sounded genuinely regretful too. “But let me take you to lunch tomorrow, Loraine.”

  “I’d love that! But it has to be rather a short one.”

  “Very well. I’ll fetch you from here at—when?”

  “A quarter to one?”

  “Without fail,” he promised. Then he bade his mother goodbye, just touched Loraine’s smooth cheek with a caressing finger, and went away.

  Mrs. Otway looked after him. Then, as the silver-grey curtains over the doorway fell to behind him, she said, flatly and bitterly:

  “He’s gone to meet that girl, of course.”

  “Oh—’ Loraine was so astounded at this unexpected reaction that for a moment she could only stare wordlessly at the older woman.

  “A good deal has happened since we last saw each other, Loraine.” Mrs. Otway shook her head impatiently. “Not only your father’s death, you poor child. But Philip’s engagement too. You do know he’s engaged, of course?”

  “He—mentioned it when I saw him at the Opera,” Loraine admitted diffidently. “Don’t you—like her, Mrs. Otway?”

  “No,” said Philip’s mother, without elaboration.

  “Does he know that’s how you feel?”

  “No, of course not. I should weaken my position immeasurably if I let him guess that. She knows—naturally. Women always sense these things. She’s frigidly nice to me of course, and I’m warmly nice to her, because that’s my way. But she knows that I don’t mean that marriage to go through.”

  “Oh, Mrs. Otway!” Loraine tried to sound shocked and only succeeded in sounding excited. “But—can you stop it?”

  “I think so.” Mrs. Otway’s lovely face looked reflective and curiously ruthless. “I—think so. Particularly if you help me, Loraine. And you will, won’t you? Because of course you love him too, don’t you?”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  UNTIL Mrs. Otway said, “You love him too, of course—�
�� in a tone which implied a statement rather than a question, Loraine had hardly dared to admit to herself how much she loved Philip. But now it was almost as though the words conferred some sort of sanction on her secret feelings.

  “How did you know?” She spoke in a low voice, but she made no attempt to deny the fact.

  “The way any intelligent mother knows, where her son is concerned.” Mrs. Otway laughed indulgently. “In any case, it was almost inevitable. He played Prince Charming to you from the moment he discovered you. Even a much more experienced girl would have found him hard to resist.”

  “Oh—” said Loraine, not altogether pleased by this reading of the case.

  “Your reaction was very natural, darling.” Mrs. Otway patted Loraine’s cheek. “And, so far as I am concerned, very acceptable. Far more so than anything to do with this Elinor Roye he now wants to marry.” And she pressed her lips together.

  “But, Mrs. Otway, it is his own business whom he marries,” Loraine pointed out reluctantly.

  “Not entirely.” Philip’s mother sounded agreeable but emphatic. “Few men who are good-looking and susceptible—and Philip is both—succeed in finding themselves an ideal wife before some harpy snaps them up. That’s where mothers are useful.” She smiled a trifle complacently as she rearranged her sables. “When he telephoned me on Sunday morning—which he usually does—and mentioned that he had seen you, I seized the opportunity at once.”

  “The—opportunity?” Loraine said doubtfully.

  “I was able to say—with perfect truth—that I had business here and that I would immediately combine it with a visit to make sure all was well with you. That also was perfectly sincere, you know, dear. I didn’t quite like the idea of you all on your own in Paris, when you are young and—I suppose ‘innocent’ is the word.”

  Loraine laughed a little self-consciously.

  “But I’m not really all on my own here. I—I have a guardian.”

  “Really? Philip didn’t mention that.” Mrs. Otway frowned, but as though she hardly thought a guardian improved matters.

  “I didn’t say much of him when I spoke to Philip. We had too little time to enlarge on anything.”

  “Him?” Mrs. Otway repeated the word reflectively. “The guardian is a man, then?”

  “Yes. A—a sort of cousin of my father’s,” explained Loraine, once more resorting to this somewhat disingenuous way of describing Paul. For Mrs. Otway was too close to Philip—whatever her sympathies might be—for Loraine to dare to risk giving her guardian’s exact identity.

  “A cousin of your father’s? Some old man you hardly even knew, then?” Mrs. Otway spoke disparagingly. “Decidedly it was a good thing that I came. Apart from the fact that I wanted to be here,” she added with a mischievous smile. “And now—” she caught Loraine’s hand with an air of flattering intimacy which was oddly disturbing—“we’re in this together, aren’t we?”

  Loraine hardly knew what to say. It was, of course, quite wonderful to find that Philip’s own mother thought it in his best interests that he should not marry this Elinor Roye. But the idea of being engaged in some sort of maternal conspiracy was most distasteful to her.

  “I’m not sure what you think I—we could do.” She rather nervously returned the friendly pressure of the fingers holding hers. “Of course I want Philip to be happy—and I wish he didn’t feel his happiness was bound up with her. But one can’t actually interfere, can one?”

  “I can,” stated Philip’s mother calmly. “This girl merely filled a vacuum at a time when Philip was on his own and bored. What is required now is a powerful counter-attraction. And that, dear Loraine, is you.”

  “Me, Mrs. Otway? Oh, but he thinks of me as a schoolgirl!”

  “No, darling. That’s how he did think of you. Now he is puzzled, charmed and intrigued to find you an amazingly attractive young woman. I was watching him each time the curtains parted and you appeared. And for minutes on end, I’ll guarantee he forgot that Elinor Roye existed.”

  It was impossible to brush aside this dangerously attractive theory, and Loraine caught her breath on a half-guilty gasp of joy. Then, before she could think of anything to say, either in protest or encouragement, Madame Moisant came hurrying back, with apologies for her long absence, and Loraine was firmly sent back to her own duties, slightly dazed, slightly troubled but indescribably excited.

  For the rest of the afternoon she was kept so busy that there was little time to think of her own affairs. And when she got home there was something else to occupy her thoughts immediately.

  “I’m afraid I’m not going to be a very useful sort of guardian to you during the next three weeks, Loraine,” Paul explained to her, half apologetically. “I have to go to London on urgent business, and I may have to fly on to Montreal from there. In other circumstances, I might have taken you with me, I suppose. But since you’re fixed up at Florian’s, I imagine there’s no question of that.”

  “None at all,” Loraine assured him hastily, for nothing short of physical violence would have persuaded her to leave Paris after what Mrs. Otway had told her. “Though it was kind of you even to think of taking me,” she added hastily.

  “Well—you are my concern, after all.” Unexpectedly, he touched her dark hair with a not ungentle hand. “I feel rather badly about leaving you. But you’re a good child and I’m sure I can trust you not to get into any mischief while I’m away.”

  Illogically, this had the effect of making her want to blurt out the whole story about Philip and Elinor and Mrs. Otway’s devious plans. But she firmly checked the confessional impulse and said instead that, under Mimi’s care, she was certain she would do very well.

  When she had time to think about it, her guardian’s temporary absence from Paris did present some useful aspects. She would be free to see as much as she liked (or they liked) of both Philip and his mother during all that time, and she would be answerable to no one for the way she spent her evenings.

  It was almost like a dispensation of Providence at this particular moment, Loraine thought gratefully. And, viewed in this light, Paul’s departure in a couple of days’ time seemed a legitimate reason for secret rejoicing, even if one felt a trifle guilty about it too.

  The next day, with her lunch appointment in view, Loraine dressed in the most becoming frock she possessed, and with such good result that Paul looked at her twice across the breakfast table and finally asked:

  “Does Florian reckon to dress all his mannequins, even outside work hours?”

  “I shouldn’t think so! Why?” Loraine inquired in surprise.

  “Well, that thing you’re wearing now, for instance—”

  “This? This isn’t a Florian model!”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “Of course not! I bought it off the peg in London, before I came here. Florian would have a fit if he thought anyone mistook it for one of his inspirations.”

  “I can bear the thought.” Her guardian smiled slightly. “Perhaps it’s the way you wear it.”

  “Oh, thank you. You mean I look—nice?”

  “I mean you look quite lovely,” he assured her. “You’re very happy about this Florian job, aren’t you?”

  “Very. But why do you ask?”

  “You look so radiant this morning. Not at all like a girl who’s going off to a routine job. More like someone who has some secret source of excitement and joy.”

  “O-oh,” said Loraine, and only y main force did she prevent herself from blushing. “I—I suppose I do feel gay and on top of the world. But it’s difficult not to in Paris, with the sun shining.”

  And then she bade him a hasty goodbye and departed for work.

  On arrival, she was half scared, half flattered to be summoned almost immediately to Florian’s workroom, where it seemed he was in a mood to design.

  To Loraine it was a tiring but curiously exhilarating morning—her first experience of that combination of inspiration, concentration and frustration which would eventu
ally result in something the fashion world would hail as a Florian creation.

  He hardly spoke to her. She could have been a canvas and sawdust dummy for all the notice he took of her. And yet there was that strange, intangible rapprochement between them which must exist between any creative artist and his source of inspiration.

  As time wore on, she thought more than once of what Madame Moisant had said about aching heads and sagging arches. But only when she began to fear she might not be released in time for her appointment with Philip did she permit a small sigh to escape her.

  He must have been more aware of her than he had shown. For he said, absently but not unkindly:

  “Not much longer, petite. Are you very tired?”

  “No, monsieur.” She straightened up resolutely. “It wasn’t that—” Then she checked herself quickly and hoped he was too much engrossed with his own affairs to have noticed what she had said.

  A useless hope, indeed, as she realized the next moment.

  “No? What then?” inquired Florian.

  “Oh, it really doesn’t matter.” She was ashamed to have let her private considerations intrude upon the great man. But he merely waited and, after a moment, she explained humbly. “It’s only that I—I have a lunch appointment.”

  “An important one?” he inquired, as he flicked a length of shining silk round her and draped it with consummate skill, to fall in a cascade down the side of the skirt.

  “To me—yes,” Loraine confessed.

  “Who is he?” The tone was faintly indulgent, though his attention seemed to be exclusively on the fall of the silk.

  “Monsieur! I—I didn’t say it was a ‘he’.”

  “At your age an important engagement is always with a ‘he’,” Florian replied drily. And, although she laughed, she found that she had to explain further.

  “He is—an old friend, monsieur. Someone I knew at home in England. He happens to be in Paris—”

  “The friend of whom you were thinking at Marianne’s wedding?” inquired Florian, with a penetration which was all the more disconcerting because he still seemed to be giving only a fraction of his attention to Loraine and her affairs.