Rachel Lindsay - House of Lorraine (1959) Read online

  Rachel Lindsay - House of Lorraine

  Nicole Herriot took a dislike to Pierre Dubois the moment she met him, and worked hard to free her uncle's world-famous couture firm from his influence. Then she found that her feelings towards him were changing yet she could not turn aside from the path she had marked out.

  The story, set in Paris, gives some fascinating glimpses of the world of high fashion.

  CHAPTER ONE

  NICOLE Herriot closed the front door and walked into the dining room. An empty coffee pot and two used cups stood on a tray on the table, and, sitting down, she pushed them aside and leaned her elbows on the polished surface.

  Alone. No one in the world to whom she could turn, no one on whom she could rely. "But that's a morbid way to think," she told herself, and, refusing to indulge in self-pity, picked up the tray and carried it into the kitchen.

  As she washed up the cups, her mind went back to the half-hour she had just spent with Mr. Adams. What was it the solicitor had said before he had left?

  "You've had a terrible loss, I know, but your father wouldn't have wanted you to grieve."

  He had been right there, for the last thing in the world Mr. Herriot would have wanted was for Nicole to mourn him. But how could she not mourn a father to whom she had been so close? She had only to close her eyes to see him bending over his art books, annotating, indexing, handling each vellum page with love. Success had reached him late in life, and by the time his book Fashion Through the Ages had been published, he was already a sick man.

  The long months of illness had brought father and daughter still closer together, and Nicole had spent every spare moment of her time with him, a fact which Mr. Herriot had noticed with concern.

  "You should be out with people of your own age," he had chided one evening as she sat reading by his bed.

  "I don't like people of my own age," Nicole had replied. "I guess I'm like you, Dad—only interested in my work. And if I get interested in something it becomes so much a part of my life that everything else is unimportant."

  A strange look had passed over Mr. Herriot's face. "That's the fault of all the Herriots, my child. Whatever they love becomes an obsession with them."

  Only too well Nicole understood what her father meant, for she remembered the years he had devoted to producing a book that could have only a limited appeal. Remembered too how her parents had quarrelled when her father had turned down a well-paid job because it would not allow him sufficient time to work on what Mrs. Herriot had persistently called "his hobby".

  "I must have been a great trial to your mother," Mr. Herriot had said abruptly, as if reading Nicole's thoughts. "When she married me, she thought she was marrying a dashing, go-ahead Frenchman, and instead she was landed with a dull bookworm."

  "There's nothing dull about you or your book," Nicole had said firmly.

  "If only the public were like you," her father had laughed. "But unfortunately only a handful of people are really interested in fashion. Women only care about the creation itself, not the hundreds of years of evolution in design and form that have gone into it."

  Nicole's thoughts were jerked back to the present by the ringing of the doorbell. Hurriedly she dried her hands on a towel and ran to open the door. Against the dark panelling her hair gleamed molten gold, and tendrils of it escaped at the nape of her neck to curl in soft fronds round her ears. Tall, and slim to the point of thinness, she looked younger than her twenty- four years. Her high cheekbones were accentuated by the hollows beneath, her grey, myopic eyes hidden behind thick, tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses.

  She opened the door and a look of pleasure lifted the corners of her full red mouth, erasing the lines of strain that marked her forehead. "Ann! I wasn't expecting you till tonight!"

  Ann Barnsley stepped into the hall. "I didn't like the idea of your being alone here so soon after the funeral, so I took the afternoon off."

  The two girls went into the sitting room and sat down in front of the fire. Ann Barnsley was some ten years older than Nicole, a small, energetic woman with black curly hair and dark flashing eyes that missed nothing. She was the personnel officer of a wholesale dress house, where she had worked ever since her husband, after a brief year of marriage, had been killed on a surveying expedition in the Antarctic.

  Nicole had met her when she had applied to the same firm for a job as dress designer, and Ann, disregarding the fact that Nicole had had no training, had followed a "hunch" and engaged her on the spot. From that moment on they had been friends and Nicole had justified all Ann's hopes. The speed with which she had learned the business, coupled with her flair for design, had placed her, after four years, in the position of chief cutter and designer.

  Ann lit a cigarette and carefully placed the match in an ash-tray. "Well, what did the solicitor have to say for himself?"

  Nicole shrugged. "Nothing that I don't already know. During the year of Dad's illness we used up most of his savings, and now. there's nothing left. But I don't care. It was his money and I wanted him to have everything he needed."

  Ann looked round the small sitting room. "Does that mean you'll have to sell the house?"

  "I intended to anyway. I thought of trying to get a small flat."

  "Why don't you come and share mine?"

  Nicole hesitated. "That's sweet of you, Ann, but I don't want to impose, and———-"

  "Oh, for heaven's sake!" Ann interrupted. "I'd love you to share my flat. The spare bedroom's never used except when my mother-in-law comes down — and I'd adore to tell her I've got no room!"

  Nicole smiled. "She's never forgiven you for marrying her son, has she?"

  "No, she didn't think I was good enough for him. And she blames me for the fact that we never had any children." A shuttered look came over Ann's face and she blew out a cloud of smoke. But when it disappeared she was smiling again. "Why don't you pack a bag and come with me now? I don't like leaving you here alone."

  "I'll be all right for a few days. I've got some things to——- " Nicole put her hand to her mouth. "I've forgotten the letter! Dad left one with Mr. Adams and told him to give it to me after he…" She reached for her handbag and took out an envelope.

  "If you'd like to read it on your own——— " Ann said, getting to her feet.

  But Nicole was already immersed in the letter and Ann saw the dark eyebrows draw together in a frown. How young the girl looked with her soft, flyaway hair, her thin, childish body and short-sighted grey eyes behind the heavy glasses. But how clearly those eyes saw when it came to design. Nicole had a great talent, an unusual flair which was battened down in the humdrum work of designing clothes for wholesale wear. Time and again Ann had seen her friend's beautiful drawings consigned to the waste-paper basket and had known that one day that unique talent for self-expression would have to find another outlet. If only she had sufficient money herself she would set Nicole up in business. There was no doubt that, given the right sort of encouragement, the girl would be able to hold her own with any of the top couturiers.

  Ann stubbed out her cigarette and settled herself more comfortably on the sofa, wondering what was in the letter that held her friend's rapt attention. She had not long to wait, for soon Nicole looked up, her eyes bright with tears.

  "If only Dad had told me this before!"

  'Told you what?"

  "About my uncle — an uncle I didn't even know existed! His name's Louis and he's Dad's brother. Yet Dad never spoke about him and neither did Mother. I can't understand it." Nicole leaned closer to the fire and hugged her knees, her profile serious, the firelight playing on her glasses so that it was difficult to see the expression behind them. "Da
d never spoke about his life before he married. I know he left Paris when he was about twenty-five and came to England as curator of the Grantley Museum. He was in charge of the costumes there and met Mother, who was secretary to one of the directors."

  "But your uncle," Ann said impatiently. "What does he say about your uncle?"

  "Just that he wants me to write to him at a Paris address. He says he quarrelled with his brother before he came to England and they never made it up. I'll read you a bit of it." Nicole did so, her voice trembling as she looked at her father's thin, spidery handwriting.

  "Life is too short to bear animosity," she read, "and for many months now, ever since my illness in fact, I have bitterly regretted that Louis and I quarrelled. Yet to get in touch with him now would seem as if I wanted something from him. And for myself that is not true. It is for you that I am concerned. Louis is a generous man, quick-tempered but kind, and I want you to write to him at once and tell him I am sorry I had too much pride to do so myself. Tell him, too, that I no longer blame him for what happened."

  Nicole let the page drop to her lap and shivered, feeling a sudden chill in the air.

  Ann stirred. "I should certainly get in touch with your uncle if I were you. Perhaps you could go and see him. You haven't had a holiday and a change would do you good. Besides, you simply must clear up the mystery."

  "There's no mystery," Nicole said firmly. "If Uncle Louis quarrelled with my father, they probably had nothing in common. I expect he's a fat old man with a buxom French wife and countless children." She paused. "But I'll write to him all the same. It's strange to discover you're not as alone as you thought you were. And I suppose even an unknown uncle is better than no family at all!"

  That night Nicole wrote to Louis Herriot. It was a difficult letter to compose, and after two or three attempts which ended up in the waste-paper basket, she contented herself with writing a very simple note.

  "I'll see what sort of response I get," she thought. "And if it's a friendly one I might take Ann's advice and go to Paris for a holiday. It's ridiculous to be half French and never to have been to the country."

  For the next month Nicole was busy clearing up her father's affairs. A buyer was found prepared to take the house provided he could move in quickly, and, deciding there was nothing to be gained by delaying, Nicole agreed to the rushed sale and within a short time had moved her few belongings in with Ann.

  Gradually the tempo of her life changed and Nicole allowed herself to be cajoled by Ann into accepting invitations from the young men whom she met at business—travellers who called into the show-rooms each week and one or two of the buyers.

  "In no time at all you'll find yourself a nice young man and get married," Ann said one evening as they drove home from the office in her small car.

  Although the remark had been made half jokingly, Nicole's reply was serious. "I don't want to get married for years yet. There's so much I'd like to do with my life, Ann. I feel I've already wasted half of it and that just round the corner there's an opportunity waiting for me." She hesitated. "Not that I haven't been happy working at Halliday's, and I'll always be grateful to you for talking Mr. Lawrence into giving me the job. I'd have found it awfully difficult to get started otherwise."

  "Nonsense," Ann said firmly. "You've got a great talent and plenty of firms would have given you a job if we hadn't. But I do agree with you that you're wasted here. You should be designing fabulous ball gowns and wonderful trousseaux!"

  Nicole laughed. "How many people can afford fabulous ball gowns these days? No, I'd be quite content if I could just design what I wanted to—if I didn't have to listen to Mr. Lawrence's half-baked ideas. Gosh, Ann, you don't know how sick I am of box-pleated skirts and little cap sleeves!"

  "I'm just as sick of them myself." Ann drew up outside a large Victorian house. "You go on up while I go down the road for some groceries."

  Humming to herself, Nicole ran up the stairs to the top floor, and as their front door came into view she stopped in surprise. Leaning negligently against the lintel was a tall, thin man dressed entirely in grey, the color unrelieved except for a red carnation in his buttonhole and a head of thick, almost startlingly white hair.

  "Can I help you?" Nicole asked as she mounted the last two stairs. "If you're waiting for Mrs. Barnsley, she'll——-"

  "I am not waiting for Mrs. Whatever-her-name-is." The man spoke with an unmistakably foreign accent. "I am waiting for Miss Herriot."

  Nicole started. "I'm Miss Herriot, but I'm afraid I don't know you."

  "I don't know you either," the man replied. "But I have come all the way from Paris in order to make your acquaintance."

  "From Paris! Then you must be—— "

  "Your Uncle Louis, and you are my niece Nicole." He clasped her by the shoulders and kissed her heartily on each cheek.

  Dazedly Nicole opened the front door and ushered her uncle into the sitting-room. He placed his grey Horn- burg and silver-tipped cane on a chair, carefully hitched his trousers and sat on the sofa.

  Nicole watched him. So this was Uncle Louis—her father's brother. She knew a sense of disappointment that this tall, almost dandyish man bore no resemblance to her gentle, vague-looking father. Yet there was no doubt that her father's love of color and design was reflected in his brother's mode of dress, for he was an elegant symposium in grey: silver-grey socks, pin-striped suit, pale grey shirt and tie.

  She cleared her throat and moved towards him. "Can I get you something to drink? A cup of coffee, or some tea?"

  "No, no. After we have talked I will take you out for dinner. But first I want to get to know you. Come, Nicole, sit down and tell me about yourself."

  "That's rather a tall order," Nicole commented. "You can't condense twenty-five years into ten minutes' conversation."

  "But I do not propose that we should have only ten minutes' conversation." He glanced at the gold watch on his wrist. "We will talk for an hour. In that time I will learn all I need to know about you. But first, tell me about Henri. Had he been ill long? Was he doing well? I tried to get in touch with him immediately after the war, but my letters were returned unopened."

  Concisely, trying to keep all emotion out of her voice, Nicole told her uncle all she could about her father. Of his job with the museum, of the small but select success he had had with his book on fashion and then of his final illness.

  "My father and I were very close," Nicole said quickly. "You see, my mother died ten years ago and Dad and I were left on our own."

  "My poor child," Uncle Louis said. "I can see that Henri has made you as old-fashioned as he was, living in a world of yesterday rather than tomorrow."

  "At the moment," Nicole retorted, "I'm attempting to live in the world of today. That's my main concern."

  "Well, nothing need be your concern any longer. You're coming to Paris with me."

  "I'm quite happy where I am," Nicole said coldly. "I only wrote to you because Dad asked me to, but you're under no obligation to look after me."

  "I never allow myself to feel under an obligation to anyone," the man replied. "I do what I do, because I want to do it. That's why Henri and I quarrelled. I'm not surprised to hear he worked in a museum! He would never take risks, Henri. He was always so——————————————————————————— "

  Nicole's face flamed. "If you're going to talk against my father, I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to leave!"

  "Tut, tut!" There was a spark of admiration in Uncle Louis' eyes as he looked at her. "There's no doubt you are a Herriot—you have the same quick temper. But, my dear child, you musn't jump to the conclusion that your father was right and I was wrong. As a matter of fact, it was the other way round!"

  "No doubt," Nicole said dryly, "but I really don't care."

  "But you should care, because if I had listened to your father I would not now be able to offer you the chance of a lifetime. You are a dress designer, are you not?"

  Nicole stared
at him. "Who told you?"

  "I made it my business to find out," Uncle Louis said, and began to pace round the room. "I reached England the day before yesterday and went straight to your father's house." He looked at her reproachfully. "That was the only address you gave me."

  "How stupid of me! I was still living there when I wrote to you and I quite forgot about letting you have this address."

  "No matter." He brushed aside her apology with a wave of his hand. "The new tenants gave me the name of your lawyer and from him I learned something about you—what you did and for whom you worked. You were not prepared for me, my child, but I came here today quite prepared for you."

  "But why? What for?"

  "Conscience, perhaps," Uncle Louis said quietly, and for the first time his manner became natural, sincere. "I find it difficult to talk about things that are closest to me, Nicole. In that respect at least, your father and I were alike. But I want you to know exactly what happened between us because it may help you to understand. Like Henri, I too realize that when one is old one begins to feel the need of a family. And you are my only living relative." He sat down again, this time forgetting to hitch his immaculately creased trousers. "Your father and I worked together when we were boys. Your grandparents had a small dressmaking establishment and it was always understood that Henri and I would carry it on after their death. Henri wanted to do so, but my ambitions reached farther than a small business in the suburbs. I wanted to sell out, move to Paris, expand. Henri would not agree and so for a time there was an impasse. Then he became ill and went away to a sanatorium, and during the three months he was gone I sold the business, invested the money in a large dressmaking firm in Paris and," he flung his arms into the air, "lost every penny—of my money as well as his."

  Nicole listened, fascinated, as her uncle told of her father's return to Paris, his realization that his inheritance had gone, and of how, disillusioned and furious, he had packed his bags and gone to another country to make a new life for himself.

  Uncle Louis paused and Nicole looked at him. Whatever had happened to him since he lost touch with her father, he had obviously prospered.