Mademoiselle Chanel Read online

  “We’ll see about that.” Boy motioned to me. “Come, Coco.”

  “I won’t take anything from here that isn’t mine,” I told Balsan. “I promise.”

  “Then you might as well go in the clothes you wear, for nothing else is yours.”

  “That is why I must go.” I returned to Boy’s side with as much pride as I could muster.

  At the doorway, I looked over my shoulder, though I didn’t know what I hoped to see. He sipped his cognac, contemplating something far away. I was about to leave him with only a suitcase filled with my hats and the few clothes I had made; he had rescued me, safeguarded me, yet I felt only vague regret for hurting him. Already this house that had been my home for nearly four years seemed as remote as his distant gaze, a ruined pile of stone that would not remember me after I had gone.

  Just as I turned back to Boy, I heard Balsan sigh. “I unlocked her cage, but you, my thieving friend, aim to set her free. Be careful with what you do. Wild things are never tamed.”

  Boy’s answer was to enclose my hand in his and take me away.

  ACT TWO

  21 RUE CAMBON

  1909–1914

  “I WANT TO BE PART OF WHAT HAPPENS.”

  I

  Paris.

  How can I describe those first months? I had become a resident of that city I had yearned to see all my life. The demolition of the cramped medieval districts initiated under the Second Empire was complete, tangled labyrinths of crooked lanes and tenements gutted to make way for sweeping boulevards lined with imposing ivory-hued apartment buildings, splendid parks, and squares with elaborate fountains.

  The noise took weeks for me to grow used to: the blaring of horns on the dashboards of new motorcars interrupting the jangle and clip-clop of hackneys and carriages, the mixture of grease and animal ordure creating an acrid stench that permeated the air. And the people everywhere, strolling the streets and chattering in cafés, catching the cabs from Montmartre to the banks of the Seine, flowing in and out of restaurants, bistros, and theaters. Artists, musicians, dancers, and sculptors; tradesmen, shop owners, and fishmongers—poor, rich, and everyone in between, blurring the lines of distinction in, as Boy put it, “an emancipated world where we’ll not be judged by how we were born but by what we become.”

  Oh, it was dazzling, infusing me with an excitement that stole my sleep. He took me to see the mansion on the avenue d’Ilène in the sixteenth arrondissement where he’d been raised—a fluted excess that had once belonged to the Rouchefauld dynasty and the sight of which left me with a sensation of panic, as I began to understand how different Boy’s background and mine truly were. Later, as we dined at Maxim’s, he explained that after his mother’s death when he was twenty-one, his father had returned to London. An embassy now rented their Paris mansion, as if such changes were commonplace. Boy might not be an aristocrat like Balsan, but his family clearly had almost as much money; indeed, I suspected they might have a good deal more.

  Boy also took me to the grandiose glass-hewn shopping emporiums—Printemps, Bon Marché, and the palatial Galeries Lafayette—that sold everything anyone could desire, from furnishings to ready-made garments, cheap stockings, and affordable shoes. It was almost pagan, this surfeit of things one could purchase, and he chuckled as I wandered the tiered floors in a daze, filling my arms with new hat forms to decorate and the clothes I needed to fit into this new world where everything I’d brought with me, save for my hats, made me look like an urchin.

  He had business engagements, as well, which he did not take me to, such as society galas and invitations to prestigious clubs. Boy explained that while he didn’t give a fig for what people said—indeed, he often went to such events dressed in tweed instead of the requisite black tie—he couldn’t afford to offend those with whom he did business or upset sensibilities by showing up with a mistress on his arm, no matter how enchanting she might be.

  So he left me behind to roam his stark, masculine apartment off the Champs-Élysées, with its dark crimson painted walls, mahogany accents, and still-life paintings of fowl and sheaves of wheat. From the terrace, I could glimpse the black skeleton of the Tour Eiffel and watch the fashionable amble the boulevards, shopping and partaking of evening aperitifs.

  Did I feel lost? Absolutely, like a lamb in the woods. Paris was a wolf waiting to devour the hapless, and I had no preparation to do battle with her, not yet. Instead, I worked feverishly, using a spare room in the back of the apartment to make as many new hats as I could. Boy would often come home late at night to find me crouched over my work, a cigarette dangling in a pillar of ash from my lips, my eyes burning and my fingers bloody with my needle’s stigmata.

  “We’re going to need more space,” he would remark, and then he’d take the instruments of my trade away from me and guide me into the bathroom—a marble-and-tile temple to cleanliness—to draw me a hot bath in the claw-footed tub, where I could soak away my exertions.

  And once he’d dried me himself with his fluffy white towels and had wrung the excess water from my ropes of hair, he took me to his walnut-paneled bed.

  I hesitate even now to speak of it. Such moments, forged of a volcanic passion that I sincerely felt might rupture me from within, are not meant to be shared. Suffice it to say that it was everything I’d read it should be, and much, much more. He had a lean body, his face, throat, and forearms tanned, but the rest of him as white as milk, his musculature defined under his skin—ribs and wrists, hips and ankles, jutting yet soft as he pressed them into mine. He fit me like a key, and he unlocked that glacial core I’d nurtured from the hour my father had ridden away in his cart. As he slid inside me and I arched to meet his thrusts, he whispered, “I love you, Coco. I love you so much”—the breathless litany of every coupling between lovers yet which I still couldn’t offer in return until he grasped my face between his hands and, still moving inside me, demanded, with near-desperate urgency, “Say it. Tell me!” and I gasped, “I . . . I love you, too,” though it always sounded so false, as though such banality could not begin to encompass the enormity of what I felt.

  Later, as he smoked and I lay with my head on his chest, tangling my fingers in the dark matting on his chest, he chuckled. “Balsan was right. You are stubborn,” and as I made to pull away, he wrapped his arms tighter about me and murmured, “No, hush. Stay as you are. I don’t care if you cannot say it. I know that you do.”

  Oh, I did. I would have died for him. He was everything to me—my lover, my family, my best friend. I knew almost no one else in Paris, though as time passed some of those I had met with Balsan began to appear. One of the first was Léon de Laborde, as debonair as ever, bringing me tales of Balsan’s trip to Argentina and a basket of lemons Balsan sent, for he knew how much I loved to use the rinds on my eyes to ease their puffiness. It was Balsan’s token apology, the only way he knew to ask for forgiveness, and I was so happy with Boy, I accepted it without hesitation.

  Happy . . .

  Yes, I was happy. It was not a comfortable feeling for me. Sometimes, after we made love and he fell asleep, I watched him like a cat, the steady rise and fall of his chest, the exhalation of nicotine-tinged breath, and the occasional mutterings of dreams. Terror would seize me that he’d be taken from me, that our idyll couldn’t last, for when had anything I loved remained as it was? Where was it written that I, child of no one, deserved such joy? It only happened at night, this abyss of dread, never during the day. Only in the empty hours between today and yesterday, when I was alone with my sleeping lover and the weight of the past crept upon me like a reproachful ghost.

  “I do need more space,” I announced one morning, after we breakfasted on the terrace and he dressed for a business meeting. “What about my shop?”

  He eyed me in the mirror, adjusting his collar. “We’ll have to start looking.” He paused. “Balsan has offered his bachelor apartment on the boulevard Malesherbes. He says you can use it for as long as you like until we find a more suitable location.�
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  I stared at him. He shrugged. “He wrote to me at my office. He is repentant. He says the manner in which he left things between us is inexcusable. He wants to make amends.”

  That was Balsan to his core: unable to bear a grudge. I disliked that I could, that while I had accepted his lemons, I could not bring myself to accept more of his charity.

  “It’s not a bad area,” Boy went on, sensing my turmoil. “He’s also offered to help find an expert milliner to assist you; he mentioned one Lucienne Rabaté, currently employed at the Maison Lewis, but apparently eager for new opportunity.”

  The Maison Lewis was one of Paris’s most prestigious hat salons; Capel had taken me there, and I was amused to discover Monsieur Lewis’s prices far exceeded his overwrought styles. Still, a milliner from such an exalted atelier was a boon. She could help me master my craft, and perhaps lure influential customers to sample my hats.

  “He said all that, did he?” I lit a cigarette, watching him through the curling smoke.

  Boy chuckled. “No, he said more, but that is all you need to hear.” As he buttoned up his jacket and reached for his driving cap, I grumbled, “I’ll think about it.”

  He leaned over to kiss my cheek. “Do. And while you’re at it, write to Adrienne and ask if she’d still like to help manage the shop. You’re too prickly to attend customers.”

  I wrote to Adrienne that very day. When her reply arrived a week later, stamped from Moulins, I took one look at the first lines and let out a howl that brought Boy running to me.

  He caught me about my waist as my legs buckled and the letter fluttered from my fingers.

  “My sister Julia,” I whispered, burying my face in his neck. “She’s dead.”

  II

  It had been a terrible set of circumstances, Adrienne wrote. Sitting on the terrace as the August sun slipped behind the rooftops, I read of how my sister had fallen in love with an officer from the garrison, who met her working at our grandparents’ market stall and courted her. Julia—innocent, gullible Julia—became pregnant; and as these matters so often went, the officer promptly requested a transfer and disappeared. Left with the disapproval of our grandparents, Julia packed her belongings and moved in with Louise. Nine months later, she gave birth and then slit her wrists. Adrienne sent word to Royallieu about the funeral, but the house was empty except for the servants, with me in Paris and Balsan in Argentina. Her letter went unanswered, lost in the correspondence awaiting Balsan on his return, if it even arrived.

  Adrienne declined to come to Paris. She was now living with her baron in Moulins, another small battle won in her war, and couldn’t risk leaving now. But she asked if I might assume responsibility for my nephew, little André, who was with Louise, and suggested I write to my sister Antoinette, who’d left the convent and was now working as we had at the horrid House of Grampayre.

  I had not given Antoinette a second thought. My guilt drove me to send urgent word to her. With Boy’s help, I also wired a large bank draft to Moulins for André’s upkeep, promising that once he reached the proper age, I would see to his education, but not in a convent or institution for foundlings. After a long talk with Boy, I determined that he should attend Eton, the English boarding school Boy recommended and offered to pay for. He sent a letter to the headmaster, whom he knew personally, to ensure André’s admittance when the time came.

  Julia’s death cast a pall over me. I had left her without a word. Haunted by my own callousness, by memories of the times we had shared and my fervent declaration at Aubazine that I would never abandon her, I could not escape the horrible thought that had I only inquired after her, taken her under my wing, she might still be alive.

  When Boy found me one evening upon his return from one of his business trips, sobbing on the sofa in the living room, he sat beside me, pulled my head to his shoulder, and whispered, “Coco, you must forgive yourself. You are not to blame. Take Balsan’s offer. Open your shop. You cannot bring your sister back. You mustn’t die with her.”

  He took me to Balsan’s apartment on Malesherbes. He had phoned ahead; none other than Lucienne Rabaté, the milliner, waited for us. A freckled, red-haired, opinionated woman, she marched before me to inspect the small ground-floor space at street level below Balsan’s empty bachelor apartment, sniffing as she toed the dust on the plank-wood floor.

  “It’s not the place Vendôme,” she said. “But with some nice displays, a rug, and a bell over the door, it will do.” She paused, eyeing me. I wasn’t sure I liked her; she had the sharp gaze of a lifelong Parisian and an expert in her trade, while I was nobody, really, a novice who made odd hats. “That said, before I accept any offer of employment, I will need to see what you intend to sell. I have a reputation to uphold. I’ll not leave my current post to peddle inferior wares.”

  I had brought four of my hats with me, but before I could remove one from the box, she thrust her hand inside and yanked it out. She held it up to the light filtering through the grimy front window, turning it about, examining it for imperfections.

  “Hmm.” She held out her hand, returning the hat to me. “Another, if you please.”

  Once she inspected each of the hats, she pursed her lips. Boy stepped outside to smoke. At length, she turned to me. “Your hats are certainly not like anything in the shops or salons. They are simple, elegant; they could appeal to the right clientele. But it will not be easy. Established milliners, as well as Worth and Paul Poiret, do not welcome competition. Indeed, they both have been at war since Poiret left Worth’s employ to open his own atelier. Do you know of them?”

  I shook my head, feeling dejected by her harangue.

  “No?” She tapped her foot. “Well, mademoiselle, if you’re going to launch a hat business, you should. Monsieur Frederick Worth is an Englishman who dresses every woman of importance, including royalty. His gowns are exclusive. No dress is alike; he creates unique apparel for each of his clients. Poiret learned his trade under Worth but now dresses our more defiant ladies in scandalous Oriental-themed ensembles. All their outfits require headpieces; they hire milliners to make these under confidential agreements that protect their designs. Is that what you wish to do?”

  “No.” I squared my shoulders. “No,” I repeated more firmly. “I want to work for myself.”

  “And your clients, I presume?” She motioned about with disdain. “This location is hardly ideal. Poiret’s atelier is near the Opéra; Worth has salons on place Vendôme and in London. You’ll need to find your customers, as they’re unlikely to stroll in here on their own.”

  “Then I will.” I’d started to pack my hats into the box when I heard her step to me. I looked up. She held a paper in her hand. “Here is a list of potential clients I can invite, whom I have met through the Maison Lewis. I suggest you look it over carefully, as under the circumstances I must ask that mademoiselle not request a reference. I do not wish for my employer to be made aware that I seek a position elsewhere.”

  I let out a weak laugh. “And I, madame, wouldn’t recognize a single name on that list.”

  “Indeed.” She glanced past the window toward Boy, standing on the curb by his car. “Perhaps Monsieur Capel might.”

  “He might,” I retorted, taking up the box. “But he is not my employer.”

  I was walking to the door when she said, “Then I believe we are in agreement.” I paused, and looked back at her. “I cannot pay much,” I told her. “As you say, this will not be easy.”

  “I have saved my wages,” was her dry reply. “And I’ve never been afraid of hard work.”

  It seemed we had something in common, after all.

  I nodded. “We are in agreement, Madame Rabaté.”

  LUCIENNE AND I CLEANED the shop of every cobweb, scrubbed the floors, washed the window, and set up a work area in the cramped back room by the staircase leading to the apartment. Boy opened a line of credit for me at his bank for funds to purchase glass displays to show off my hats, a marble-topped counter, a gilded chai
r and mirror for the wall, and a rug and chiming bell for the door. I wanted an awning with my name, but the building manager forbade it; instead, I had a hand-lettered sign made in block letters for the window: GABRIELLE CHANEL.

  A few days before I was due to open the shop, my collection of sample hats perched on felt model heads in tiers on the displays and the window featuring an exclusive creation fashioned by me and Lucienne—an elegant cream hat with a black silk band and single egret feather—Antoinette appeared at the door with her valise.

  Taking one look at her, I had to bite back tears. At twenty-two years of age, she was a sparrow of a woman, with our big Chanel eyes and wealth of hair, though hers was a lighter shade than my own, and she had our mother’s piquant expression. She looked as if she hadn’t eaten in weeks. I took her to the corner café, plying her with ham-filled croissants and hot chocolate as she related the familiar story of enduring years of humiliation as a charity case at the convent in Moulins before she went to work under the tyrannical Madame G.

  “That is over now,” I assured her. “You shall stay in Balsan’s apartment over the shop; there is a nice bedroom and sitting room. You’ll work for me, attending to the customers, for I don’t think I can do that and design hats at the same time.”

  The truth was neither could she, or not at first. She was very timid, though she flourished in time under Lucienne’s tutelage, while I remained terrified of that little bell above the door, tinkling the arrival of a curious customer. Lucienne had been true to her word and sent out invitations to her list. They all came, well-dressed women in sumptuous outfits with maidservants, perusing my wares as I hid in the back room, refusing to come out. If they had asked me to give them my hats for free, I would have, so apprehensive was I of my reception.

  As my business slowly grew, abetted by Lucienne’s loyal clients, as well as the arrival of Émilienne and her coterie, who bought everything in sight, Lucienne kept me informed of the cloistered world outside my door.