A Perfect Heritage (31 page)

It had been an extraordinary morning; she had arrived at eight thirty to find her grandmother laying out the newly reclaimed counter, smiling sweetly at the consultant beside her and telling her how much she appreciated her allowing Farrell’s to share her space for the morning while encroaching considerably on her territory with the Farrell showcards and colour testers. An hour later, Athina had made three sales, more than poor Marjorie had sometimes managed in an entire morning, and had Lucy doing a makeover on a fourth customer.

‘Very good, Lucy darling,’ she would say from time to time, walking over and turning the woman’s face gently with a heavily beringed hand. ‘Perhaps a little more concealer, just here look. You’ve got lovely skin, my dear, but it’s a little thirsty – I think you haven’t been using The Cream, so you must start today. Lucy is my granddaughter,’ she added, ‘trained at a very well-known school. She used to play with my make up for hours when she was just a tiny little girl, “I want to be a make-up lady, just like you, Grandy,” she used to say, and here she is, her ambition fulfilled. Try the translucent powder, Lucy, that one you’re using could be a little too heavy . . .’

Lucy, who had no recollection whatsoever of telling her grandmother, when a tiny little girl, that she wanted to be a make-up lady, reached meekly for the translucent powder.

She was dreading introducing Athina to the Brandon girls; she would probably consider them very common, and tell them their display material was vulgar, but she had them hanging on her words in minutes, admiring their skill at handling so many customers at a time, buying one of the colour palettes for herself and asking them how involved they were in product development.

‘We’re not,’ said Jade, ‘just told this is what we’ve got to sell. Be nice to be asked though,’ she added. ‘After all, we talk to the customers ourselves, we know what they want. Mind you, Mr Brandon doesn’t make many mistakes.’

‘He clearly has a feeling for what’s in the air,’ said Athina. ‘My husband, Sir Cornelius Farrell, had that gift too. As did I, of course. But we always asked the consultants to give us a view. We felt, as you clearly do, that daily contact with the customers gave them a lot of insight. Now tell me, these lip crayons, they must sell awfully well . . . and do you have a perfume range of any kind?’

‘And tomorrow we go to Grasse?’ Florence said, leaning back in the car.

‘You’re not too tired? It’s been a wonderful day, thank you so much.’

‘Of course I’m not tired. I love Grasse. And the museum is quite inspiring.’

‘Great. Now you know what? I would really like to have a little wander in the posh bit. The rue Cambon and so on. Well, specifically Chanel. I quite fancy a bag . . .’

‘Oh! May I come with you?’

‘Florence, I’d love it.’

She redirected the car to the rue Cambon and they swept along the river, over the vast Concorde bridge, into the Place de la Concorde, all drenched in the exquisite afternoon light.

‘So lovely,’ said Florence, sighing with pleasure. ‘How wonderful to be here, Bianca, I’m so grateful to you for bringing me.’

‘It would have been a lot less wonderful for me, without you,’ said Bianca. She looked at the long frontage of the Crillon Hotel as they swerved past it, and wondered if Saul was there. No, of course he wasn’t, he was at Longchamps. Pity, she would have liked Florence to meet him. They could have had tea in the Crillon garden and – Bianca Bailey, why are you even thinking about Saul Finlayson and his meeting Florence?

‘
Le
voilà
.’ The driver had pulled up outside Chanel.

‘Oh, wonderful.
Merci
. Oh, my God, why do I want everything they ever do?’ said Bianca. ‘Come on Florence, in we go.’

Within the black and white mirrored space, the chicest of Frenchwomen, some of them very young, wandered silently, gazing about them as if in church, worshipping at the shrine.

‘You know, I suppose, that she had an apartment here, on the third floor,’ said Bianca. ‘It’s amazing. I’ve seen photographs of it and I’m sure you have.’

‘I have, yes, of course.’

‘But it has no bedroom – she lived at the Ritz across the road. She’s my absolute heroine,’ Bianca said. ‘When I think of the new range – The Collection as we must now call it – I think of her.’

‘A very good style guide,’ said Florence. ‘Of course, we can’t do black and white packaging, too many already: Chanel’s own, and Quant and Jo Malone, of course – although hers is cream – but I wonder, navy and white? How would that be?’

‘Perfect, I think,’ Bianca said, staring at her. ‘What a wonderful idea. I shall brief the studio the minute we get back.’

She moved over to the handbags and Florence followed her, smiling. Bianca exclaimed, pointed, requested; bags were taken down, set reverently on the counter, examined, and finally, one was chosen, a large tote in cream.

‘I know it’s not really seriously Chanel style, not sure she would have liked it, but I adore it,’ said Bianca.

‘It’s very nice,’ said Florence, smiling. ‘And I think you are wrong: Chanel
would
have liked it. She was all about fashion being practical, geared to real life, and this will suit you – and your life – very well.’

‘Excuse me, madame . . .’ The assistant was smiling at Florence now. ‘But that is a vintage Chanel jacket, I think?’

‘Oh . . .’ Florence looked down at her navy jersey jacket, as if half surprised to see what she was wearing. ‘Yes, yes it is.’

‘Very, very lovely. It becomes you, madame. Might I guess at the date? Around 1970?’

‘Around then,’ Florence said, and for the first time, she appeared a little flustered, Bianca thought. ‘I like – well, I like to bring it back to Paris sometimes.’

‘Beautiful. Beautiful.’ She returned to packing Bianca’s bag. ‘
Le voici
, Madame. It is a very lovely bag, you have chosen well. Enjoy it.’

‘Thank you,’ said Bianca.

They returned to the car; and she smiled at Florence.

‘A real Chanel jacket. Lucky you!’

‘Yes, indeed,’ said Florence. ‘Well, you know. One of the vintage shops, a lucky find.’

Bianca didn’t believe her for a moment, without knowing why.

Later, before they had dinner, Florence said she would like to take a walk. She set off down the street, surprisingly briskly for a lady in her eighties who had been walking most of the day. Bianca looked after her thoughtfully.

When she hadn’t returned after half an hour she decided to go and look for her and found her within five minutes, just two streets away, standing in front of a large wooden gate opening on to a large, leafy, cobbled courtyard. She was looking into it with an odd expression on her face, an absolute blend of happiness and sadness; when she saw Bianca she smiled at her.

‘I’m sorry. I got carried away. I wanted to walk down to le Pont des Arts, you know, the lovers’ bridge, with the padlocks; the view from there is so dazzling.’

Bianca didn’t believe that for a moment either.

Chapter 31

It had been so amazing in Grasse. Probably the best two days of all. Such a lovely town, built in layered terraces, like some exquisitely designed film set, its wonderful rich colours, all shades of cream and pink and terracotta, its walkways strung with roses and wisteria, its gorgeously ornate houses with their own ornate stucco, its tiny meandering streets and arches and steps, its ravishing cathedral.

It was also where he promised her she would be safe for ever and made arrangements in order to keep the promise.

They met at the airport in Nice, having travelled separately of course: Florence, who had spent at least half of her week’s salary on her wardrobe for the trip, had changed in the ladies’ lavatory at the airport, not wishing to appear crumpled when she walked through to meet him. She was wearing what was almost her favourite outfit: a simple cardigan and matching skirt in cream wool, daringly short, at least an inch above the knee – but then, she did have very good legs as she was well aware – over a black silk T-shirt. Her hair was cropped short, her curls forming a shining golden brown cap, and her make up was bold, her brown eyes made huge with dark shadow and eyeliner, her fake lashes multi-layered, her lips pale and ultra glossy.

‘You look like an advertisement for make up,’ said Cornelius, shaking her hand formally as they met.

‘Yes, it’s from an awfully nice range called Farrell,’ she said.

He had hired a car, a most dashing thing, the Mercedes 300SL with the famous gull wing doors. ‘Goodness, Cornelius, this is amazing,’ she said as the doors sank slowly downwards.

‘Well, I thought it was a fairly special three days, and we had to have a car that deserved it.’

He was looking wonderful, as always, very casual in a white open-necked shirt and a denim suit, and the new Chelsea boots; his hair was longer, and he was wearing some very dark sunglasses which gave him a raffish air.

‘Oh my goodness,’ said Florence as they sped along the coast road, ‘I feel as if I’m in a slightly bad film. Have you seen
Jules et Jim
, Cornelius? Not that that’s bad, I simply adored it. I went last night, just to put me in the mood.’

‘I have indeed. I shall endeavour, though, not to drive the car over a cliff.’

It was a shining May day, blue and golden and almost hot. ‘See the sky,’ said Cornelius, ‘it has been polished for us by the Mistral.’

‘How very poetic you are,’ said Florence, smiling, and he admitted it was not an original observation but one which Lawrence Durrell had made. ‘But I’m sure I would have come to it in due course.’

Florence was staying in a charming small
auberge
in the outlying village of Pont du Loup, booked by herself through a small travel agent in Ealing while Cornelius was staying in one of the best hotels in Grasse, a fine chateau of a place, booked by his secretary. Athina had been irritated by the trip, claiming it was unnecessary.

‘I fail to see why you’re going. We are so busy at the moment, all the summer promotions and considerable competition, I might add. Revlon, Rubinstein, Arden – we have to work very hard to stay ahead. And now this Lauder woman is doing awfully well too. The stores are very impressed with her, and all her monstrously expensive creams.’

‘If they’re monstrously expensive,’ said Cornelius mildly, ‘why do you worry about her?’

‘Cornelius, have you learned nothing over the past ten years? Every brand must have something special about it. A concept, a legend. Miss Arden has her red doors and her cleanse-tone-nourish programme, Revson has his colour promotions – who will ever forget Cherries in the Snow? Anyway, the whole point about Re-Nutriv cream is its price. “I would never spend thirty pounds on a pot of cream,” people say. “How ridiculous!” – and then buy it.’

‘And what do we have that’s special? On that basis?’

Cornelius’s face was innocent. His voice was not. Athina gave him a withering look.

‘We are English, with a great heritage,’ she said, ‘and we understand the Englishwoman and the English skin. People know that. That is our unique claim. Of course we give them everything else besides, but we do have something very much our own. Although sometimes I feel we don’t get that message across strongly enough. I never cease talking about it, of course, and the advertising helps, but I feel you could do more in that way. You could be the English Charles Revson if you wanted to be.’

‘Good God, I hope not!’ said Cornelius. ‘The most unpleasant man, as I understand it, and a dreadful philanderer. I hope that’s not how you see me.’

‘Well, you are certainly not unpleasant and no one could ever dream you could be a philanderer. But you do have style and class.’

‘Thank you, my darling.’

‘I’m not trying to flatter you,’ said Athina, ‘merely stating a fact. And I think we should capitalise on it more.’

‘In what way?’ said Cornelius. He looked slightly alarmed.

‘The cult of the personality is a very powerful tool. All this stuff, complete nonsense of course, about Miss Arden using her creams on her racehorses, but people remember it. Mrs Lauder has a genius for that sort of thing, I have to say. We should learn from her. I once managed to get into one of her sales conferences for her consultants. It was like a revivalist meeting. They all sat gazing up at her and she preached a sort of sermon about the products and ended with, “Now remember, you are the star on stage, the public are your audience and the cash register is your applause”.’

‘Rather good,’ said Cornelius.

‘But vulgar. Which is hardly surprising. She’s American for a start and her roots are very humble.’

‘I don’t think my mother was exactly grand,’ said Cornelius. ‘She was a dressmaker before she became an actress.’

‘Oh, dressmaker, couturier, who would know the difference? And she was a very successful actress until she married your father. I shall think about it. Mrs Lauder has done very well with claiming the Duchess of Windsor wears
Youth Dew
. Anyway, that’s the sort of thing you should be doing, Cornelius, not wasting time on non-productive nonsense like trips to Grasse.’

‘On the contrary, I think it would be an excellent story, were we to go down that particular road, that I had gone to the very heart of the world’s perfume industry to develop Madame Farrell, or Farrell Dew or whatever you want to call this scent of ours.’

‘I suppose you’re right, it could make an interesting story . . .’

Florence and he walked for a long time around Grasse that first day and felt they had hardly seen the half of it. They stopped in the lovely old square at the top of the town, with its three-tiered fountain and incredible market where he bought her a great armful of flowers, and she protested, laughing, reluctant to return them to the car where they would wilt. The man took pity and offered to keep the flowers until the end of the day.

‘As well he might,’ Cornelius said, laughing. ‘It’s probably the largest sale he’s made for weeks.’

Florence didn’t visit the perfumiers with him – it would be far too indiscreet; instead she gazed in awe at the great Fragonard mansion that sat high on one of the terraces of the town, and wandered round all the tiny shops selling perfume, the very air seeming scented in the warm afternoon.

And then she went to the Fragonard parfumerie, where she joined a tour and listened earnestly to the details of how a perfume was made and bought a book about it, and studied the bottles; two particularly charmed her, a miniature silver cart, bearing four bottles, pulled by two silver horses, and an exquisitely cut glass bottle with a silver cupid aloft, as its stopper.

‘Did you know,’ she said to Cornelius later, as they dined in a tiny restaurant near her
auberge
, ‘they have to pick the jasmine flowers at dawn, when the scent is at its most developed. Isn’t that a lovely thing?’

‘It is. And do you know that Grasse enjoys a micro-climate, very warm but sheltered from the sea air, which is ideal for the flowers, and that there is a great abundance of water in the area?’

‘Well, yes, and I have some rather less charming information for you: civetone, which is one of the crucial ingredients in perfume, is extracted from a cat’s anal glands, and ambergris from the intestines of a whale.’

‘Lovely! We must make sure that’s in the advertising.’

‘Indeed. Now here, on my wrist, is a perfume I created myself today. Why you are employing an expensive perfumier I have no idea. Tell me what you think?’

He took her small wrist in his hand and raised it to his nose, sniffed at it and then kissed it tenderly.

‘Not bad,’ he said, ‘but not nearly beautiful enough for you.’

Later, lying in bed in her room – small, but charming, with its lace curtains and cushions, fine glass wall lights, and the great jug of flowers on the scrubbed chest of drawers, he turned to her and sighed, and said, ‘My darling, darling Little Flo, there is something I want to tell you.’

‘You – want to finish it?’ she said, very calm, for she had been anticipating it ever since the first time in Paris.

‘Finish it? Dear God, no, never, never! As long as you will have me, I will want this to continue. It is worth every risk, every sadness. What I don’t quite understand is why you put up with it. You could find a real lover, a full-time one, who would marry you and care for you—’

‘And who I would never stop comparing with you,’ she said. ‘Cornelius, you may not be the best of prospects but I have never known such happiness as I know with you. Well, not since Duncan. I was happy with him. And had great – what shall we say – fulfilment.’

And she leaned over to kiss him.

‘I have often wondered about that with him,’ he said, ‘the fulfilment, as you call it.’

‘Well – it was there. I loved him and he taught me to, well, to enjoy it.’

‘He did a very good job,’ he said and smiled at her.

‘He did. But we had so little time to learn and explore one another. So it was – different. With you, there is – more. In bed, that is,’ she added, laughing.

‘And out of it? How much then?’

‘Well, when we are together, a great deal. I love being with you so much. You interest and intrigue me, you make me laugh . . .’

‘And cry? Sometimes? When we have to part.’

‘No,’ she said very seriously, ‘no. I have never cried over you. I wept so much for Duncan, because there couldn’t be a future. With you there is one. Of sorts. I miss you, but there is always the next time to think about.’

‘And yet you thought then I was going to end it?’

‘Well, yes. I’m always prepared for that. And I promise not to make a scene if you do. Meanwhile, what we have now is enough, Cornelius, really it is. I love my job, and I love my freedom; I love my Sundays, roaming London and the galleries and museums, and spending time with my friends. I’m perfect mistress material, you see.’

‘And – guilt? Does that trouble you?’

‘Yes and no,’ she said. ‘I don’t like to deceive Athina; on the other hand, she does treat me rather disgracefully and I take a certain comfort in the thought of our relationship. Which is probably very wicked of me.’

‘Probably. I too,’ he said, laughing, kissing her shoulder. ‘She is not always very kind to me either.’

‘But so long as she doesn’t know, and isn’t hurt – well, what harm are we doing? And then, I have never for a single moment wanted motherhood. I do like children, but I hate babies. I have two goddaughters who satisfy what maternal instincts I have. So you see, although I would like to spend more time with you, I have no desire to have you father my children. And I know how much you love Bertie and Caro, dear little things that they are. Especially Bertie. He is the sweetest little boy. So – what did you want to say to me?’

‘Oh, not a great deal,’ he said, and his expression was very tender now. ‘And I think that this is not, after all, the right time. I suddenly have rather more urgent plans for us.’

‘Oh really?’ she said, lying back. ‘I cannot imagine what they might be. Oh – oh, yes, I see . . . Oh, my God, Cornelius, please, please, don’t stop doing that, it’s so lovely, so very lovely . . . God, oh God . . .’

‘I will stop just for a moment,’ he said, laughing, ‘and tell you that tomorrow I plan to take you somewhere special, and then I shall tell you what I am going to do for you. I think you will be pleased. But now – oh, God, I love you. I love you so much, Florence. I wish we could be together all the time. And I’m glad we have talked as we have, because it seems as if you wouldn’t want to be married to me anyway.’

‘Cornelius, I’m afraid I wouldn’t,’ said Florence, sweetly serious. ‘I want what we have. But more of it. Oh, God!’

And she pulled him towards her; and downstairs
Madame la Proprietress
, who was turning out the lights, heard the bed begin to creak and then a little later, as she went upstairs, first moans and then cries of pleasure, and thought how very nice it was that the charming Mlle Hamilton, so beautiful and so really rather chicly dressed, should not, after all, be the lonely spinster she had imagined.

The special place next day to which Cornelius took her, was the Colombe d’Or restaurant in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, which Florence had read of in her guide book, but had never thought to see, haunt as it was of the famous, the talented, the creative, of actors, singers, artists (most notably Picasso).

They ate an amazing meal. ‘Oh, I love food,’ said Florence happily as she devoured first bouillabaisse, then veal and finally crêpes suzette.

‘You’re so fortunate,’ he said, ‘not to put on weight. Athina has a constant battle with hers, and taking her out to dinner is no fun at all. Do you have a secret?’

‘Yes, I do. It’s my mother. She was like a bird, although my father always said she ate like a vulture. I must have inherited that from her.’

‘Then let us drink to your mother.’

They were sitting outside in the sunshine; he was wearing a linen suit and his sunglasses were very dark.

‘You look like Yves Montand,’ said Florence.