Mademoiselle Chanel (4 page)

S
he was my reflection, a mirror image of my own self, if I’d been pampered since birth, enjoying the good fortune of not only two parents but also of a doting older sister with a loving husband—the genteel embodiment of what a girl should be.

Her name was Adrienne Chanel. I wanted to hate her at first sight.

She wafted out to welcome us after our three-day journey to Moulins and our new convent boarding school. I might have taken dismal note of another circle of walls, another spindly bell tower and grounds within double gates, had I not been riveted by her slim figure with its cloud of hair as black as my own. She acted as if she had known us our entire lives, greeting us with an embrace and a kiss on both cheeks, so that for hours afterward I smelled her lavender scent on me.

“How wonderful you’re here at last,” she declared. I watched her face with its thick-lashed eyes and wide mouth for any sign of hesitation. I could hardly blame her for not coming to our rescue, as we were the same age. She had been a girl when our mother died. Yet I found myself longing to find fault with her. “Now, we’re together as a family and need never be apart again.”

I saw Julia’s entire person lean toward Adrienne’s sun. I should have
been relieved—for my sister had done little but utter terrified doubts about our future—but again, that unfathomable coil in the pit of my being, which I didn’t yet recognize as envy, beset me.

Even if I had, I would have bitten off my own tongue rather than admit it. I’d never envied anyone. How could I now find myself longing to be like my gracious aunt?

In the weeks that followed, I could not escape her. As we were both eighteen, I had to bed in Adrienne’s dormitory, which I soon learned was the place for “charity girls,” while the exclusive dormitory in the opposite wing housed the daughters of respectable families who paid to have them educated. It was Aubazine all over again, with the same resentments and rivalries. And I knew I’d be a target because I was new, clearly impoverished, angry—in a word,
different
.

Adrienne cleared my path of obstacles without any apparent effort. “Pay no mind to them,” she said as we walked to class with Julia at our heels. The rich girls with their preposterous bonnets and plump cheeks turned up their noses and said, “I smell roast chestnuts,” alluding to our peasant blood. At Aubazine, I’d have whirled on them. However, Adrienne merely paused to regard them before she lilted, “Why, Angélique, such a fetching
capote
you have on.” The recipient of this unexpected compliment flushed, embarrassed by her own cruelty as she muttered, “Thank you, Adrienne. Your sister Madame Costier made it.”

“Did she really?” Adrienne smiled. “Well, it’s enchanting. It suits you perfectly.”

“Enchanting?” I said in disbelief as we walked on. “Why would you say such a thing? That bonnet didn’t suit her in the slightest. She looks like a mule with a dead stork on her head.”

Adrienne laughed. Even her laughter was sublime, its refinement truly differentiating us, despite our uncanny similarity of appearance. “Oh, Gabrielle, you are droll. She does look absurd, doesn’t she? But we cannot always say what we think. What kind of world would it be if we all went around admitting our dislikes?”

“A better-hatted one?” I grumbled, though I had to admit she made sense. Her ability to win over even the most recalcitrant with her charm was a quality that I found not only maddeningly elusive in myself but also dangerously appealing.

At night after the doors closed on the dormitory and the girls settled into their various cliques, she glided to my bed to slide between my sheets. “Tell me a story,” she whispered.

Unsettled by her proximity, I said, “What makes you think I know any stories?”

“Don’t be coy.” She reached over to pinch my nose. “Julia already told me you read everything you could in the library at Aubazine. You must know many stories.”

Julia had been confiding in her. Why wasn’t I surprised?

“All the stories I know are about martyrs or saints,” I said, refusing to surrender to her enticement. “You’ve surely read the same yourself. There is a library here, as well.”

“Oh, I never read if I can help it,” she said, and I pounced on this admission of her ignorance with sheer delight.

“You don’t read?”

“No.” She reclined on our shared pillow, her hair draped about her face. “I don’t care for books. I prefer to listen to stories; it is more exciting that way. I can hear the characters as if they’re right there in front of me, on a stage.”

My enthusiasm that I had uncovered a fault in her crumbled. “Well, I don’t know any,” I persisted, watching her from the corner of my eye as I’d watched the girls in Aubazine. “Does Aunt Louise actually make hats?” I finally asked.

“She doesn’t make them,” explained Adrienne. “She helps decorate hats for local mercers and tailors. In the busy season, she gets work from Vichy, because the shops don’t have enough hands to get their orders completed on time. Have you ever been to Vichy?” she asked, and when I glowered at her, she nudged my ribs. “Don’t frown so much. You’ll get lines on your
forehead and you really are quite pretty. Besides, you’ll visit Vichy soon enough. Louise goes twice a year to deliver consignments and buy trimmings. I often go with her. You’ll love it.”

I barely heard her promise of a trip to Vichy. “You—you think I’m pretty?” I detested my own desperate question even as I braced myself for another of her offhand replies.

Instead, she righted herself on one elbow to stare at me. “I do. You have such fine, distinct features yet you don’t look like anyone else.”

“Julia says I look like you. She says we are more like sisters than she is.”

“Does she?” Adrienne seemed genuinely surprised. “Well, there is a certain family resemblance, I suppose. How could there not be? Your father is my oldest brother! Of course we look like sisters. We have the same dark eyes and olive skin, and all this crazy hair.” She gave a chuckle. “But that’s only on the outside. Inside, I think we must be quite different.”

Again, I was discovering Adrienne had unexpected facets to her personality.

She settled back against me. “I think you must find all this terribly provincial.”

I was speechless. Had she forgotten I’d just left a convent in the middle of nowhere?

“What do you yearn to be when we leave here?” she asked. “We have only two years left. I think you should become an actress. Or perhaps a
grande cocotte
. Yes, that would suit you! You could go to the Opéra with pearls about your throat, and bring men to their knees with a mere glance of your bold black eyes.”

I had to laugh. I couldn’t help it. Pressing a hand to my mouth, I rocked the little bed with my stifled guffaws. When my mirth subsided, I found her regarding me patiently.

“I have no desire to be a—what did you call it?”

“A
grande cocotte,”
she said. “A courtesan.”

“Yes, well, I have no desire to be one or bring men to their knees. That, I should think, is something you could do well enough for both of us.”

“Oh, no.” She shook her head. “I only wish to marry for love.”

So, she had a spark of foolishness after all. Marrying for love was a fantasy only the naive would indulge; even I knew that.

“I’ve always dreamed of meeting a man who will fall deeply in love with me,” she went on, unaware of my scorn. “Someone handsome and gallant, not rich necessarily, or even of exalted birth—although that couldn’t hurt—but kind and considerate, who wants to marry me because he cannot live without me.”

“I see,” I said dryly. “And does this gallant knight of yours have a name?”

“Not yet.” She turned a smile to me. “But he will, I have no doubt. We will meet and—”

“He will bring you to your knees,” I cut in, and when I saw her flinch, I added more gently, “Or you to his. In the end, it’s the same thing. Or so I hear.”

She brightened. “What about you? I told you my dream. Now you must tell me yours.”

“I . . . I don’t have any dreams,” I said haltingly. “I only know I want to
do
something.”

“Do?” she echoed, as though the notion was unfamiliar.

“Yes. Be someone.” I hadn’t ever contemplated such an idea before, hadn’t even realized it skulked inside me, and I thought she would laugh at me, for my dream was even more ridiculous than hers. I was poor and female. Working
for
someone would be sufficient accomplishment, if I ever got that far.

But she appeared to consider me as if it was possible. “I think you will,” she said at length. “I believe you can do whatever you choose. You simply require the opportunity.”

“And opportunities are like stories in books,” I retorted. “All we need do is pick one.”

“I believe you just did. You want to be someone.” She kissed my cheek before she folded back the covers to return to her own bed.

V
arennes-sur-Allier wasn’t much of a village. I had known others like it in my childhood—a scrabble of whitewashed houses and shops huddled together, encircled by a road that exuded massive quantities of dust whenever a coach rattled past on its way to better places.

There was an ancient church near the travelers’ inn and railroad station where Uncle Costier worked. In the village itself, surrounded by crop fields, men doffed their berets and black-clad widows eyed us as we made our way to Aunt Louise’s house—a simple stone structure with a red-tile roof, reached by a pathway through a vegetable patch. In the doorway, a tidy woman waved to us. Her resemblance to my father, to Adrienne and me, was startling. Of course, she was Papa’s sister, too, just as Adrienne was, so why did I feel this sudden urge to run away? Did I not want to be part of their lives? Deep inside, I did, but the reminder that these very people had not once come to find us stifled me. I had a thousand questions. Why had they left us alone? Did they have news of my father or brothers? Yet I said nothing. Aubazine had taught me to be guarded.

“Oh, my goodness, look at you!” exclaimed Tante Louise. “So like my brother Albert yet as petite as your mother. And you, Julia: why you’re as lovely as a cameo.” Kissing my sister and me on our cheeks, she swept us
inside her home with its upholstered furnishings and cupboard displaying porcelain plate and silverware—clear signs that she’d married into a class higher than the one into which she’d been born.

She served tea with napkins, and little cakes with frosting. “Are you hungry, my dear? Go on, eat some more. Poor thing, you look half starved. Don’t they feed you enough at the convent? They do? Well, then, you’re not eating as you should. Look at Julia here, she’s far more flesh on her bones. You’re too thin. Now, let me see: I have this nice fresh bread and smoked ham. The ham was cured right here in Varennes! Come now. Eat some. No, more. Now, don’t be shy. This is not the convent, my dear. Here, you may eat your fill.”

With my stomach engorged, I was hurried into the parlor, a corner suited to feminine sensibilities. Here, there was a bit of a mess for such an otherwise neat household, baskets of multicolored trims, remnants of lace, and spools of ribbons strewn everywhere save for the woven-backed chairs. On the worktable were several bonnets in various stages of adornment, lined up like plump children awaiting inspection.

“Gabrielle has been dying to see these!” Adrienne said. “She’s been so curious about how you make the
capotes
. I saw Angélique at the convent wearing one and Gabrielle has been asking about it ever since. She is quite determined.”

An exaggeration, of course, but a clever one that caught Tante Louise’s attention. She swerved her bright, birdlike gaze to me. “Is that so? Do you sew, my dear?”

“Yes,” I mumbled, swallowing a belch that tasted of cured ham. “In the convent, I—”

Julia piped up, “She was the best seamstress in Aubazine. The nuns always praised her work. She can trim a handkerchief, mend a sleeve, or turn a hem so that it looks perfect, like new. Isn’t that so, Gabrielle?”

I nodded uncertainly. Hearing my sister extol my skills made me uncomfortable.

“Oh, that is high praise, indeed,” said Louise. “The nuns are notoriously hard to please. Such perfectionists! Would you like to work on a hat with
me, my dear? Go on, don’t be shy. Here, take this one.” She thrust a bonnet into my hands. “It’s not finished yet and I’ve so many to attend to before the season starts in Vichy.” She directed an exasperated look at Adrienne. “I ask you, how hard can it be for those merchants to learn their own trade? By my word, they wait until the last minute, taking orders from all and sundry, they’re so eager, and then they run about in a panic because they cannot be paid until the order is delivered to the customer’s satisfaction and . . .”

Her babble of woes faded as I contemplated the thing she had set into my palms. It wasn’t
finished
? To me, it looked as if it were about to grow legs and walk clucking into the garden, laden with carnation baubles, streamers, and sprigs of orange plume.

I became aware of the sudden silence, and glanced up to see the three of them watching me expectantly. The polite thing to do was say it was perfect and return it to its overdressed siblings. What did I know about hats? Yet I found myself staring at it closely, everything fading around me, disappearing, as it had in Aubazine when I’d toiled over camellias on a handkerchief. I reached out tentatively, as though the hat might squeal in protest, and plucked off the plume.

Better. But it still did not look right. Turning it around, I removed one of the streamers. Ah, much better. Now, the actual shape showed. With the palm of my hand, I flattened one bauble and wriggled the others off. Threads dangled now; searching the table, I found a pair of scissors and snipped them.
Now,
it looked like something a woman could wear.

After turning it around several times to assess it, I was satisfied. Its basic form couldn’t be helped, for it was the ubiquitous lady’s headpiece, with ribbons to affix it under the chin and a shallow depth intended to make it sit perkily on the head. Hardly ideal, but it worked for what it was. Turning around, I found my aunts and sister still staring at me. I thought I saw shock on their faces. A tremor went through me. I had just ruined a hat that Louise had no doubt worked on for weeks, ordered by a customer, entrusted to her by the milliner.

Louise gaped at me. Adrienne giggled. “See? I told you, she’s quite determined.”

“Yes, I do see.” Louise’s voice was tight. “Obviously, her talent is raw.” She paused, inspecting the refurbished
capote
as if she couldn’t decide whether to scold or applaud. “And these others . . . ? What would you do with them?”

“Nothing.” I tried to force out a smile. “They’re all lovely.”

Louise gave me a searching look. “Please, don’t humor me. What would you do?”

“Strip them bare and start again,” I replied, without understanding from where my brazen confidence sprang.

“Why?” asked Louise, to my disconcertion. “Do you find them ugly, perhaps?”

I felt as I had in the abbess’s chamber, cornered by a question with no easy answer. “Not ugly. But . . . uncomfortable. Do we really need to walk around with a basket of fruit on our heads?”

“A basket of fruit!” Louise let out a nervous chortle. “Oh my. I think we should start slowly. These bonnets are the latest style. It’s the summer, after all. A hat must keep the sun off one’s face and yet announce to the world that one is a lady.”

And a lady must be seen coming from a mile away, I wanted to reply. Instead, I said quietly, “Why not use one or two pins, instead?”

“Pins?” Louise echoed.

“Yes. Hat pins. With simple stones, to set off the hat’s shape without covering it up. It is still a hat. It should look like one. Shouldn’t it?”

Louise turned from me to survey her hats. Excess was clearly her preference when it came to hats and food. Yet in her soul, she remained a frugal peasant of the Auvergne; and to her credit, and my astonishment, she turned to one of her cabinets and pulled out a drawer. She set it before me on the worktable. “Are these suitable?”

The drawer was filled with hat pins of every imaginable size and shape, some far too ornate to ever be noticed in an already overblown bonnet, but others that were less so. I selected a bone one with a fake blue sapphire. “May I?” I asked.

Louise stepped aside. I searched the hats for the least garnished and
settled on a straw-braided boater with an azure band. Taking it up, I slid the pin through the band and then rummaged in the detritus around me for suitable adornment. When I found what felt right—a white linen flower that reminded me of the camellia of Aubazine—I took up needle and thread to attach it to the rim, nestling it against the side like a fallen bloom. “There. See?”

Adrienne didn’t wait for her sister’s verdict. Seizing it from me, she put the boater on and cocked her head, a hand at her hip. “Well? Does it suit?”

The consternation on Louise’s face faded. “Why, it does. It does, indeed. It’s so . . . different.” She turned to me. “Where did you learn to do this?”

I shrugged. I didn’t know, but I found myself echoing the abbess’s words: “Sometimes, it’s the simplest things we should most long for.”

I hadn’t meant to repeat the very phrase that had seemed more a warning than an encouragement. Nevertheless, as I viewed the boater on Adrienne’s head, I realized that like the sheets, handkerchiefs, and other items I’d sewn in Aubazine, I was proud of this, too. It wasn’t my choice of a hat, but I could wear it. I wouldn’t be ashamed to be seen in it.

“I’m keeping it,” Adrienne said. “I’ll show it off next time we go to Vichy,” and as Louise spluttered that the hat was already bought and Adrienne couldn’t possibly be seen parading about Vichy in another lady’s property, I looked past them to where Julia dawdled on a stool, nibbling on one of the frosted cakes.

Her smile needed no interpretation. I could hear her saying, “Didn’t I tell you so?” as loudly as if she had shouted it out to the uncaring world.

For the first time since leaving Aubazine, I felt a stirring of hope.

Perhaps I did have a gift, after all.