Before the Storm (13 page)

Mademoiselle Bertin’s famous shop, Au Grand Mogol was on the other side of the river on the Rue Saint-Honoré, which snaked alongside the stately edifice of the Louvre palace. Clementine pressed her face against the glass as they rolled over the Pont Royale then skirted swiftly around the Tuileries gardens and then the vast Medieval palace itself.
 

Sidonie had taught her that the Tuileries and Louvre had once been home to the royal family of France before Louis XIV decided to build what he thought was a far superior palace on the outskirts of Paris at Versailles. Now though there were a few apartments set aside for use by the royal family should they need to stay in Paris overnight while all the rest of the huge building was given over to grace and favour apartments for royal servants and, more excitingly, dozens of artists’ studios and apartments for their families. What had once been a stately royal palace was now a vibrant, thriving community.

Their carriage bowled down the narrow Rue de Saint-Honoré, going past rows of tall pale stone buildings with prettily coloured shuttered windows on the top floor apartments and fashionable, brightly lit shops and cafés at pavement level. Women in fabulous flounced dresses and enormous hats strolled along the street, arm in arm with handsome, no less flamboyantly dressed men, who peered curiously into their carriage as it went past.

Finally they pulled up outside Mademoiselle Bertin’s shop, which had a pretty pink painted frontage and huge windows filled with an opulent array of dresses, hats and shoes
 
in sugared almond colours and trimmed with lace, pearls and sequins. Clementine stared in through the windows, agog with amazement as her sister and mother swept straight into the shop. ‘Come along, Clementine!’ Eliza called over her shoulder. ‘You’re dawdling again.’

A pretty shop girl in a blue cotton dress held the pink painted door open for Clementine as she hurried inside to be hit with the crisp smell of silk, Mademoiselle Bertin’s own heady jasmine and rose scent and the heavily fragranced pastilles that burned in large porcelain dishes in the corners of the room, filling the air with a fug of violet, bergamot and lavender. Everywhere that she looked there were beautiful dresses mounted on wooden dummies, rows of pastel silk and velvet shoes and several examples of the elaborate muslin, ribbon and silk flower
poufs
that fashionable women wore on top of their coiffed and powdered hair.

‘Monsieur Fargeon, the Queen’s own perfumer, has invented a way to scent silk flowers so that they smell just like the real thing, ‘ the shop girl whispered to Clementine, showing her a bunch of dusky pink silk roses and peonies that did indeed smell very real. ‘In fact our flowers are even better than real ones for they last forever and never die.’

The back of the shop was lined with huge floor to ceiling mirrors, swagged with elaborate folds of pink velvet that matched the sofas that lined one of the walls. A few groups of women sat chatting on them, admiring the wares that Mademoiselle Bertin’s shop girls were showing to them. As Clementine watched, fascinated, one of the women pulled on a long pale blue silk glove and moved her arm this way and that while her friends applauded and complimented her.

‘The gloves are also scented by Monsieur Fargeon,’ the girl beside Clementine murmured with a smile. ‘The blue silk ones smell like iris while the white ones smell like lilies.’ She looked Clementine over speculatively. ‘Have you an appointment with Mademoiselle Bertin?’

‘No... I mean...’ Clementine looked to her mother, who stepped in front of her, cleared her throat and then embarked on her very best French. ‘I am Madame Garland,’ she said, pronouncing her surname in a way that she thought sounded pleasingly French: Gar-lonn. ‘My daughters and I are newly arrived in Paris from England. We are residing on the Rue de l’Université and require full wardrobes of clothes for the coming months.’

As she spoke, everyone else in the shop stopped speaking and fell silent to stare at her in amazement and also, regrettably, some amusement. Clementine blushed with embarrassment as she noticed two of the shop girls giggling behind their hands and exchanging looks. However, Mrs Garland’s speech had also commanded a modicum of respect, if only of the size of her purse and the shop girl she had spoken to dipped a low curtsey and offered to go and get mademoiselle herself, recognising in Mrs Garland one who had come prepared to spend a substantial sum of money.

‘I don’t know why you are blushing,’ Mrs Garland muttered reprovingly to her youngest daughter as they watched the girl disappear through some curtains at the side of the shop. ‘Our money is as good as anyone’s! Better in fact as I hear that all these Frenchies are in debt up to their eyeballs.’

They did not have to wait long before Mademoiselle Bertin, dressed in green and black striped satin bustled into the shop, at which point all the shop girls stood up a little straighter and smiled a little brighter and the lounging customers all fell very quiet, keen to hear what the famed
modiste,
whose clothes were admired and copied by all the world would make of her new English customers.

‘Madame?’ She advanced upon Mrs Garland with a wide glittering smile that did not quite meet her small dark eyes fixed to her round, heavily rouged face. ‘I hear that you are newly arrived in Paris?’ She looked the three of them over, paying particularly close attention to Eliza, who she looked up and down with pursed lips. ‘And you say that you require a full wardrobe?’ she asked, steering them all to a sofa at the back of the shop.

‘Yes,’ Mrs Garland said with a nod. ‘I want everything new.’

‘Are you taking your daughters to Versailles, madame?’ Mademoiselle Bertin had seen it all in her long years at the forefront of French fashion and could easily recognise an ambitious
maman
when she saw one. ‘I have some exciting new designs for court dresses that you may like to see...’
 

‘I want to see everything,’ Mrs Garland said grandly, sitting down on the pink silk sofa and pulling Eliza down beside her, while Clementine idled beside them, her head beginning to ache thanks to a combination of exhaustion, hunger and the rich, heady scents that swirled around the stuffy shop.

Mademoiselle Bertin looked at Clementine shrewdly, noticing how pale and uncertain the girl was. How annoying it would be if she fainted in the middle of her shop. ‘Would you care for some refreshments while we look at some designs?’ she asked, clicking her fingers at one of the shop girls who hurried away to do her bidding. ‘I have a particularly lovely creation in pale jonquil yellow that I think would suit Mademoiselle Garland perfectly.
 
I call it “Cupid’s Sighs”.’

They emerged from Au Grand Mogol two hours later, dazed, exhausted and considerably poorer thanks to the acquisition of several cotton, silk and velvet day gowns, simple muslin dresses (‘The Queen is not so fond of these as she used to be, but they do very well for young ladies’) and a couple of silk and gauze ball gowns each along with a mountain of chemises, stockings,
poufs
, cloaks and hats, all of which would be delivered to the Rue de l’Université within the next week.

Chapter Twelve

They slept late the next day, exhausted by their journey from England and first hectic afternoon in Paris. Clementine had fallen asleep on a sofa in the sitting room straight after dinner and had had to be carried upstairs by one of the footmen, assisted by Sidonie who supported her head and carried a candle to light their way up the stairs to her room.

She was shamefaced when she emerged the next day from her room, pale and befuddled after a night of not much sleep and well aware that Sidonie, who was sitting waiting for her in the salon, had planned to take them all to meet her friend, the Vicomtesse d’Albret that day. The Vicomtesse was apparently a lady of some standing in Parisian society and so it was clear that proper attention must be paid.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Sidonie reassured Clementine with a smile when she began to apologise for her tardiness. ‘We did not decide on an exact time and Madame la Vicomtesse’s doors are always open to visitors.’ She smilingly helped Clementine to a cup of coffee. ‘Rest assured that we will not cause any offence if we do not arrive before luncheon.’

As it transpired, they were to arrive several hours after luncheon as they had to wait first for Mrs Garland to arise and then for Eliza to come downstairs, which she eventually did, looking divinely lovely in a new dress of pale yellow and white striped silk with a fine lawn fichu arranged on her shoulders.

Mrs Garland went with them to the Vicomtesse’s house on the Place Royale but preferred to go off and do some shopping on the adjoining Rue des Francs Bourgeois, while Sidonie took the girls inside. ‘I do not mean to be rude to Madame la Vicomtesse,’ she explained in a whisper to her daughter’s governess. ‘It is just that I have always had such a horror of intellectual females. I think it is for the best that I stay away. You will give her my compliments and sincere thanks, won’t you?’

Sidonie sighed. ‘As you wish, ma’am.’ She turned to Clementine who was standing on the pavement, looking up at the lovely red brick houses that lined the square. ‘Are you ready to go in now?’ Eliza was watching regretfully as her mother sashayed away through the small park in the centre of the square, looking very much as though she would have preferred to go with her.

Sidonie led the two girls into the pillared cloister that ran around the square, where there were huge green painted doors leading to the houses above. As they watched, she rang the bell that hung beside one of them, which was quickly opened by a young pageboy in black and silver livery. ‘Mademoiselle de Roche and the Mesdemoiselles Garland,’ she said to him as he grinned up at her. ‘Madame la Vicomtesse is expecting us.’

They were escorted through a marble floored hall and then up a white painted staircase to a huge jade green and gold painted salon on the first floor, with tall open windows that looked out over the Place Royale. On each window sill there rested a silver long silver tub planted full of daffodils, their cheerful yellow heads bobbing gracefully in the light breeze.
 

Their hostess, Madame d’Albret, a dark haired lady of about forty, was reclining on a pale blue silk sofa beside one of the windows but immediately jumped up at their entrance and ran to take Sidonie’s hands in her own, which glittered with diamond and emerald rings. ‘My dear one.’ She leaned forward to kiss both of Sidonie’s cheeks with enthusiasm. ‘I can’t tell you how pleased I am to see you again. It’s been far too long!’ She turned to the two girls. ‘And this must be the Garland girls?’ Her dark gaze swept over Eliza, but lingered thoughtfully for a moment on Clementine. ‘How kind of you to bring them to see me.’

A fully dressed man who lay asleep across one of the other sofas, his powdered wig lying across his face, chose this moment to wake up and stretch his arms out while noisily yawning. ‘Good afternoon,’ he said gravely to the ladies with extreme politeness before getting up and strolling from the room, his wig trailing limply from his fingers.

Madame d’Albret turned to her guests with a smile. ‘As you can see, my doors are never closed,’ she said, leading them to her sofa with its view across the lovely square. ‘Many hostesses like to open their salons on a particular evening every week but I prefer to welcome good conversation whenever it chooses to come to me.’
 

‘So how do you like Paris?’ she asked Clementine, patting the sofa beside her as an invitation to sit down.

‘I like it very much,’ Clementine replied as she seated herself. ‘We only got here yesterday but what I have seen so far is very pleasing.’

Madame d’Albret laughed. ‘And what have you seen in just one day, I wonder? The inside of Mademoiselle Bertin’s shop?’ Seeing that Clementine looked hurt, she immediately took her hand and gave it a squeeze. ‘I am sorry. I don’t mean to mock. Why don’t I ask you the same question again in a month’s time when you have had time to see more of our city?’

Clementine watched as their hostess turned her head away to talk about old friends with Sidonie and then, very briefly, books with Eliza. Her manner was slightly flirtatious but also decided and she had a charming way of putting her head slightly to one side as she listened to others speak.
 

‘And do you find Paris much changed since you were last here?’ she asked Sidonie with a smile.

Sidonie considered this for a moment. ‘I do,’ she said. ‘There’s something in the air...’

Madame d’Albret nodded. ‘It’s the calm before the storm,’ she said with a sad look out of her window at the beautiful, serene Place Royale. ‘And when the storm comes, nothing will ever be the same again.’

Clementine gave a shiver. She had no idea what Madame d’Albret’s words meant but they made her feel suddenly helpless and afraid.

Sidonie seized an opportunity to speak alone with her friend as her two charges walked up and down the lofty
salon
, admiring the view from its windows and then standing for a long time in front of a Nattier portrait of Madame d’Albret as a smiling young girl in pale blue silk that hung over the huge ornate red marble mantelpiece. ‘And what do you think of them?’ she asked in an undertone.

‘Charming,’ the Vicomtesse replied with a smile as she looked the two girls over. ‘Quite charming and irresistibly English. Bring them to my
soirée
once a week, particularly the fascinating Clementine and I will do what I can for them, but I think that they will do very well by themselves and especially if the Comtesse Jules is to act as their sponsor.’