The Other Linding Girl (17 page)

“I’m not an idiot. And nor am I the passive, spineless person you all seem to think. You forget that I also have the power to alter the situation drastically. I don’t have to keep quiet, just because you and that arrogant brother of hers and that self-satisfied Oliver Mayforth choose to make a conspiracy of it, I’ve said nothing so far because I thought—when Hester was better—things would be all right again—

His voice trailed away, and Rachel stared at him in dismay.

“Do you mean,” she said sharply, “that you have some idea of making trouble with my uncle, just because Hester has had the sense to bring this business to an end?”

He didn’t answer immediately, then muttered something finally about not having made up his mind yet.

“Well, make it up now,” Rachel told him curtly, as she rose to her feet, for she realised that she could not linger here indefinitely. “I can’t stay and talk to you any longer, because I have an appointment But please try to behave like an adult, with some sense of decency. You cannot and must not interfere any more in Hester’s affairs. In fact—”

But she never finished the sentence, for he turned and went from her, without any word of good-bye, his slight figure lost in the crowd, so quickly and completely that she could not have followed him even if she would.

For a second or two longer Rachel stood there, disturbed and doubtful. But then, since there was nothing further she could do about this unpleasant little interlude—and her own affairs demanded her attention—she finally decided to dismiss Keith. Elman from her mind for the moment, and consider later if she should say anything to Hester about this conversation.

This time when she presented herself at the enquiry desk she was attended to immediately and, in the care of a perky little page, she was taken up to the Florians’ suite on the first floor.

Here she found not only the famous designer himself, but a charming, dark-eyed, fair-haired girl, with the most beautiful skin she had ever seen. She was introduced as Gabrielle Florian, and it was obvious to Rachel that, even if they had been married ten years, they were still completely, happily and uninhibitedly in love.

“My husband tells me you are so efficient and helpful,” she said to Rachel. “He declares he would like you for his own secretary, if he had not already got one who rules him and his business with a rod of iron. His words, not mine,” she added, with an amused glance at her husband.

“How very nice of you, Monsieur Florian,” Rachel laughed. “But I don’t think you’ve had much opportunity to judge of my efficiency, have you? We met only once.”

“But every letter which came from you to Paris showed me how well you dealt with every occasion,” he replied. “And when I spoke to Miss McGrath earlier this evening—”

“Oh, you have spoken to her?” Rachel interrupted quickly.

"Yes, indeed.”

“And there still remain points to elucidate?” Rachel sounded sceptical but amused.

Then, before Florian could reply, Gabrielle interrupted to say that, if they were going to talk business, she would finish her unpacking.

“I shan’t be long ” she told Rachel, “and I hope you will stay

and have coffee or a drink with us both afterwards.”

When she had gone, there was an unexpected silence for a few moments. Then Florian walked up the room and back again, looking faintly perplexed—a most unusual condition for him.

“Monsieur Florian—” Rachel looked at him doubtfully. “If there are any details left to arrange—”

“There are not,
Cherie.”
He stopped in front of her, a slight frown creasing his forehead. “That was merely an excuse to get you here. Because—inexcusably as it may seem to you—I want to speak to you about your own private affairs.”

“In what way?” She looked astonished, and a little defensive, so that he said immediately,

“I should not dream of doing so if you hadn’t given me your confidence the other evening. But—” he shrugged expressively— “you are too nice a child to be left totally unprepared—”

He paused, and she had the distinct impression that he very much disliked what he was going to say.

“Yes, Monsieur Florian?” she prompted, a trifle apprehensively. “Did you know,
mon enfant,
that Miss McGrath intends to announce her engagement at the party after the dress show on Friday?”

CHAPTER VII

Rachel sat very still, while it seemed to her that Florian’s words echoed over and over again in the silent room. Then she roused herself at last and said,

“Are you—quite sure about this?”

“Miss McGrath herself told me. She asked me to keep it a secret.” He made a slight grimace. “In telling you I have done what I very seldom do—acted without discretion and broken a confidence. But I shall not lie awake at night about that. What troubles me,
mon enfant,
is the effect upon you.”

“You’re very kind to be so concerned. It’s—it’s not entirely a surprise. At least—” Rachel stopped. Because, in spite of everything—her hopes, her fears, her reasoning and her instinct—it was more than a surprise, it was an unspeakable shock, to learn that Nigel, after all, was to marry Fiona McGrath.

“Why was it not entirely a surprise?” The Frenchman sat down opposite, her, his tired, rather cynical eyes regarding her with genuine kindness. “Had you already beard hints?”

“Oh, no. But I knew that an—an offer had been made to Nigel. And I thought perhaps he would feel bound to accept it,” she added simply,

“An offer? What offer?”

“Miss McGrath’s brother offered him twenty thousand pounds towards his programme of research. It’s a lot of money, Monsieur Florian, and if one accepts such a sum, one cannot be an absolutely free agent again.”

“One need not, however, enter into an unwanted marriage. For this I think the price must be higher,” retorted Florian sardonically.

Rachel smiled faintly and shook her head.

“It depends on the circumstances, I suppose. He knew that the offer—made for decency’s sake through the brother—was Fiona’s way of saying she—she liked him and wanted him to marry her. If he did not mean to play her game, there was only one thing he could do—refuse .”

“And he accepted?”

“I don’t know. Yes, I suppose he must have done so, since—since there is to be an engagement. I only know that he delayed the decision because—”

"Because what,
cherie
?”

“Because he loves me. I
know
he does, monsieur! Please don’t ask me how—I just know it.”

“Then he should have been man enough to refuse the offer of the money.”

“Oh, no, no! It’s not so simple as that. If you could see where and how he works! He and his assistants—with so little but their knowledge and faith and determination. Of course they could go on without the money, but so slowly and so amateurishly. A sum like that could transform the whole scene—might well mean the difference between early success and the sort of failure that condemns people to die. I suppose,” she said slowly, “he chose to help the people who might otherwise die. And who can say he was wrong?”

Florian frowned.

“What does he do, this Nigel of yours? What is his line of research?”

“I don’t really know,” said Rachel humbly. “It’s all very technical. You’d have to talk to him about that—”

“Perhaps,” murmured Florian, half to himself, “that is what I should do.”

"‘Monsieur!” She raised her head and looked at him, half startled, half hopeful.

“No, no, my dear, don't start imagining or hoping things” He made a quick gesture of dismissal with his expressive hands. “It all sounds very touching and worthwhile as you describe it. But you see his work with the eyes of love, while I am a hard business man. And so—”

“Oh, Monsieur Florian,” interrupted Rachel warmly, “you may be a business man, but you’re not hard.”

“On the contrary, I am considered the toughest and most odious of all the dress designers,” Florian replied, not without a touch of satisfaction. "And even one of my own mannequins has been known to describe me as a monster.”

“Oh, dear—perhaps she was cross at the time,” suggested Rachel, which made him laugh immoderately. And at that Gabrielle came back into the room, to say that her unpacking was complete, and to ask what the joke was.

“Only our young friend’s idea of what happens in the fashion world,” Florian explained good-humouredly. “When I told her that one of my mannequins described me as a monster, she suggested very gently and politely that perhaps she was cross.”

“
Cross?
Oh, “cross” wouldn’t be quite the word,” Gabrielle assured Rachel with a smile. “She was probably in raging hysterics. Or threatening to throw herself from a top story window. ”

“A common form of threat,” Florian amplified, almost indulgently. “Never so far carried into execution.”

Rachel thought the path of a dress designer must be strewn with more unusual difficulties than she had at first supposed. But both Florian and his wife looked quite calm about it. Indeed, Gabrielle smiled at that point and asked her husband, with engaging eagerness, “Have you told her yet about the surprise?”

“The surprise?” Florian seemed to have forgotten what that was for the moment. Then he evidently recalled it, but without full satisfaction, Rachel saw. “Oh, you had better tell her. I’m afraid it won’t quite fulfil its purpose now, but—”

He broke off and shrugged. And Gabrielle, turning to Rachel, said, “We brought you a present, because of all the work you have done in connection with the show. My husband thought you would like a dress for the great occasion, and so—”

“A dress?” gasped Rachel. “Do you mean a
Florian
dress?”

“It is not my practice to promote my rivals’ designs ” said Florian with grim humour.

“But—but how wonderful of you! I don’t know what to say—” “Perhaps you had better try the dress on her,” Florian said to his wife. “Then if any small alteration is needed. Mademoiselle Charlotte can see to it tomorrow.”

So Gabrielle took Rachel into the next room and, having made her slip off the dress she was wearing, she expertly arrayed her in the Florian model.

It was black. But the most exquisite, delicate, filmy black lace, of a kind that must be worn only by the very young. It imparted to Rachel’s skin a subtle pearly sheen which made her catch her breath. The beautifully moulded little bodice dung to her like a caress, and the skirt swirled away from what seemed an incredibly small waist in magnificent opulence and drama.

“I never saw such a dress! I never looked like that in all my life—I can’t imagine—It’s too wonderful!”

She stood before the mirror in Gabrielle’s room, fascinated, unable to tear herself away from the unfamiliar sight. Until Gabrielle laughed and said, “You’re really beautiful, in a touching, quite unusual way. Let’s call Florian in and see what he thinks. ”

So the great dress designer was summoned, and walked round her, considering her from every angle. He altered the fall of the skirt slightly, securing it with a couple of pins. Then he said,

“But for that slight alteration it will do.”

“Do!” echoed Rachel. “It’s the most heavenly, wonderful dress any girl ever had. I never wore anything like it in my life.”

“No, of course not ” he agreed simply. “You never had a Florian dress before, I presume. ”

“Monsieur Florian—” she turned suddenly from the mirror to face him—"why did you do this wonderful thing for me? It couldn’t just be because of a few letters?”

“Dresses are my business,” he pointed out rather disagreeably.

“It wasn’t only that,” Gabrielle smiled, and explained, “He told me it was important that you should look your best at the show and the party afterwards. That someone would be there who ought to see you in a Florian dress”

“Oh—I see.” Rachel was suddenly sobered, for she knew now why Florian was not particularly elated over the success of his dress. The reason for it no longer existed.

“My husband is both romantic and interfering,” Gabrielle went on, with an amused glance at him. “He once changed a girl’s whole life by seeing that the right man saw her at the right time in the right dress. He has never got over it. Isn’t that so,
mon
cheri?”

“More or less,” Florian admitted, kissing the side of her cheek unselfconsciously. “It is probably my instinct for stage-management. I apologise, mademoiselle.”

“There’s no need to
apologise
,” exclaimed Rachel, who could not bear that, after all his kindness, he should suppose she were less than enraptured. “I can well believe that such a dress can work miracles. Perhaps—this one will.”

“Perhaps,” he agreed with a smile.

Then he left her to change back to her own much more mundane dress. And presently they went downstairs to the big lounge and sat and drank coffee and talked shop. Or rather, the Florians talked shop, while Rachel listened entranced.

When she finally said she must go—and once more tried to give some expression to the gratitude she felt—Gabrielle told her kindly that she must come over to Paris one day and see the salon. And on that pleasing thought they parted.