The Milliner's Secret (10 page)

The following day, climbing into a taxi the Duet’s commissionaire had ordered for them, she heard Dietrich instruct, ‘Boulevard de la Madeleine.’ As they drove off, he said, ‘We’re going to our favourite hat shop.’

‘And I thought we only had fair hair in common.’

He gave a piercing look. ‘More than that, surely. If there was racing today, I would take you to Longchamps and let you bet on the winner. Then our affair would have come full circle.’

Our affair. As the cab sped down boulevard Malesherbes, Coralie turned the word over. ‘Affair’ meant adultery. Affairs were sordid, and usually short. Yet there was nothing sordid in the way she felt about Dietrich. His face in profile, his voice on the telephone, calling down to invite her to lunch or lovemaking. Or the hot knife that ran across her stomach when he put his hand to the small of her back or took her arm. That felt as pure as a church candle, though she supposed the world saw it differently. She wanted Dietrich to feel the same reverence for her.

As the taxi swung into place de la Madeleine, a cliff-face of sacred columns took her mind off her fears. She was still craning round for a last view of the church of St Mary Magdalene as the taxi pulled up behind a highly polished Talbot, with a chauffeur at the wheel. This was boulevard de la Madeleine, she supposed. The moment Dietrich opened her door, Coralie was out, rushing up to a window filled with hats on metal stalks.

They were all pink, from palest peach, intensifying to coral and flamingo before fading at the end of the line to the colour of unpainted plaster. Some were trimmed with goose feathers, others with dyed spotted guinea fowl, or cockerel, though the fashionable world referred to that as
coque
. One had a brim lined with downy ostrich, which would send you mad with tickling. Her eye kept coming back to the last in the line. Plaster-pink, or ‘shrimp’, to be a little more succulent, it was simplicity itself. A platter of dyed
coque
feather, it would curl diagonally across the face. Even though it carried reminiscences of Sheila Flynn, Coralie craved it. Then her glance slid upwards. Etched into the glass – La Passerinette. Above the letter
i
a small grey bird was pictured in the act of perching. A sparrow? A finch? Or a poor creature about to be caught on birdlime? She felt a bit the same.

Five minutes inside this shop would expose her. She looked for Dietrich, willing to turn her ankle – anything – to win back her seat in the taxi. But the cab was leaving and Dietrich was holding open the shop door for her.

‘You’re on the wrong side of the glass,
Liebchen
. Come on.’

La Passerinette’s salon was just large enough to accommodate two tables, each with a triple mirror, and a sofa to which Dietrich headed with a familiarity that heightened Coralie’s discomfort. A single assistant was attending to an ancient lady in black. That they’d interrupted a dispute became obvious when the customer barked that her head measured ‘Fifty-six centimetres and always has. Don’t tell me it’s fifty-seven. Damn fool!’

The assistant was struggling to get her tape measure round the woman’s hair. ‘To be sure, Madame la Marquise, one must take account of your curls. Madame still has a remarkable number.’

‘Counting, are you?’

‘Not at all. Please sit still.’

Coralie saw the girl’s difficulty. Because she had a curvature of the neck, the marquise was poking her chin forward to see herself in the mirror. Her coffee-brown curls were slipping backwards. Then they slipped right off and Coralie choked off a giggle. The assistant deftly replaced the hairpiece before turning to look at Coralie through spectacles as thick as jam-jars.

‘I beg your pardon, but Mademoiselle Lorienne will come in a moment, if you would kindly take a seat.’

The girl failed to acknowledge Dietrich. Perching beside him on the sofa, Coralie whispered, ‘Aren’t men allowed in here or what?’

He replied quietly, ‘The poor girl doesn’t see me. To her, the world is a blur.’

‘How can she be a milliner?’

‘Perhaps by serving only ladies more shortsighted than she. Normally, she’s hidden in a back room. As it is nice and quiet, we’ll wait for Lorienne.’

Just ‘Lorienne’. Why was Dietrich on first-name terms with a woman running a hat shop? He volunteered no more, so she studied the shop, liking its dusky pink walls and the overblown chandelier that cast reflections on the hats in the window. I’ll have one of those pink ones, she promised herself. Assuming they didn’t cost a fortune. Grey and pink hatboxes caught her eye and her gasp of recognition made Dietrich look up in concern.

‘The hat I was wearing the day I met you,’ she said, despite herself. ‘Black feathers? It was from this shop and came out of a box the same as those over there. Your friend Ottilia said she had one like it.’

‘It was made here, made specially. There was only ever one model.’

‘That’s unbelievable.’

‘I don’t see why.’

It
was
strange, but she couldn’t blurt out the whole story. So she tried half the story. ‘I borrowed it off a neighbour. Sort of . . . Sheila Flynn’s her name. If it was Ottilia’s hat, how did Sheila get hold of it?’

Dietrich stared upwards, as if surveying a selection of ideas. ‘I can imagine what happened. Ottilia loved the idea of black feathers but disliked the reality. The hat made her look deathly – so she gave it to her maid. I’m guessing the maid took it to London when she accompanied Ottilia, and sold it. Dealers pay good money for cast-offs with Paris labels. The coincidence must be that your neighbour bought it. Or it may not even be such a coincidence, if somebody had many copies made with fake La Passerinette labels. That happens. We could find out, if you wanted to go back to London.’

‘I don’t want to.’

‘Coralie, you look as if you’re staring into your own grave. Is there something you wish to tell me?’

‘Yes. I wish you hadn’t brought me here.’

‘But it is a wonderful shop.’

‘Dietrich, why did Ottilia pretend to be interested when I said I was a milliner?’
When I said
– three small steps towards confession. Join up the clues. Get it over with.

‘She
was
interested.’

Coralie shook her head. ‘A woman like her? Don’t be polite.’

‘All right.’ Again, Dietrich consulted the air above him. ‘Ottilia floats through life like a flower-head cast upon the river. I dare say she minded seeing another woman wearing her hat but it is not her way to make a scene. She would think it vulgar.’

‘She certainly thought me vulgar.’

‘Did she? My memory is of you treading on the top of my foot – which hurts still, by the way. And of seeing your back, straight and slender, and hoping you would turn round so I could see your face. Which I hoped would be lovely. Finding it was, though complete with a black eye, I was intrigued.’

‘What brought you to England?’

‘To attend country-house sales and buy pictures. And to see Ottilia. She made me to take her to the Derby, not to see the racing – she doesn’t like horses and hates crowds – but because she’d heard that at Epsom one finds Gypsy fortune-tellers. I told you that day, she had a question to which she needed an answer.’

Coralie’s image of Ottilia was of her staring at the ground, her white clothes blowing like foam. ‘She was crying when she came out of that wagon.’

‘She learned that there is danger in asking for the truth because you may get it.’ This was accompanied by such a particular look that Coralie reddened and changed the subject.

‘I thought you were slumming it. People of your class usually swank around in the members’ enclosure.’

‘Neither Ottilia nor I relish being recognised. Now this you must observe . . . ’

The shop assistant had placed a black felt disc on the marquise’s head. As Coralie watched, she pinched it into a cone while her other hand described a shape in the mirror for the marquise’s benefit. She then made a crown and a partial brim from the fabric, like a sculptress working with clay. She bent so close to her work that her glasses fell down her nose, and when she produced scissors, Coralie’s eyes widened. They stayed wide as blades trimmed inches off the brim.

Coralie thought,
If I tried that, there’d be blood and bits of ear all over the place
. The girl pinned up the shallower side of the brim, then stood back, enabling Coralie to see the marquise’s reflection. The old noblewoman had been restored to dignity. Her wrinkled butter-bean face had been given width at the temple, her beaky nose softened. Even her wig seemed less absurd now it was framed in black. To think that a pair of hands and a few snips could work such a change. The girl was a magician.

‘I don’t like it.’ The marquise wrenched it off and threw it away.

‘Perhaps Madame la Marquise will do me the honour of saying what she does like?’ The girl’s voice was soft. Weary.

‘I’m sick of black!’

‘But Madame always wishes for black.’

‘Madame always wishes for black,’ the old woman echoed, reminding Coralie of a mynah bird in the window of the barber’s shop on the Old Kent Road. ‘That one!’ A twiggy finger pointed to the window. ‘The one that’s all feathers. The faded pink one.’

Coralie gasped. ‘But that’s the one I want!’

Dietrich tutted, amused. ‘No more feathers, surely? Ah, too late,
Liebchen
.’

The assistant had lifted it from its stand like a sacrificial victim, sighing, ‘Madame la Marquise has never asked for such a colour before.’

‘How do you know? How old are you?’

‘Twenty-nine, Madame.’

‘Well, I’m eighty. My husband died before you were born. Who says widows have to live and die in black?’

The assistant placed the pink feathers on the marquise’s head.

‘She looks like an old broiler hen,’ Coralie moaned quietly.

Her misery mixed with Dietrich’s chuckles as the marquise pushed herself upright and commanded, ‘Have the bill sent to my country place and box the hat up. I shall wear it to travel in.’

Opening the door carrying a La Passerinette hatbox proved difficult, and Dietrich got up to help. As the marquise stumped past, he said, ‘Madame, permit me to say that you will look quite ravishing in pink.’ To Coralie’s amazement, the old woman graciously extended her hand for him to kiss.

As Dietrich sat down, Coralie hissed, ‘Anyone would think you were auditioning for Prince Charming at the Finsbury Park Empire.’ It was out before she could stop herself and the alteration in Dietrich’s expression chilled her. ‘I didn’t mean to say that. Don’t be angry.’

‘Then don’t mock me.’

‘No. I’m sorry.’

‘I do not understand why you say some of the things you do.’

‘I’m jealous.’

‘Of an old woman? You can be sure she will be ridiculed by everyone who sees her. Does she need your sneers as well?’

Tears welled with nowhere to go but down her cheeks. ‘I was being rotten. Don’t hate me, Dietrich.’

He handed over his handkerchief. Her bag was down by her feet somewhere. ‘Understand, Coralie, I will take a great deal of pain for those I care for but I have no tolerance for mockery.’

‘So you do care for me?’

‘Very much. Now, I shall go and find Lorienne. Perhaps she’s napping. It is a hot day and hot weather ruffles the mind.’

She closed her eyes as he left. If anyone knew how men hated being teased, she should. How many times had she had a back-swipe at home for some flippant remark? Donal was the exception, taking her jibes in good humour. Or maybe he
had
minded – she’d never bothered to ask. Oh, Donal. Her last words to him had been so cruel and she’d probably never see him again. It was Dietrich she must concentrate on. He deserved her respect. He could have turned his back on her when she’d hurled herself at him at Victoria Station. She’d never forget the cocktail of disbelief, pity and . . . what? pleasure? with which he’d greeted her.

On 3 June, just a few minutes short of eleven o’clock, she’d sprinted into Victoria, eyes everywhere, as she tried to locate the Pullman train. No time to go to the Ladies and tidy herself, though she’d spent much of the previous night walking the streets. From Bermondsey Street, she’d crossed the Thames and had slunk around the wharves until the attentions of lone men warned her that she might not survive the night unmolested. She’d gone back south of the river and found sanctuary in the familiar surroundings of Southwark’s Catholic cathedral. There, she’d slept surprisingly well on a hard pew, waking with just enough time to get to Victoria.