The Collection by Gioia Diliberto

Author:Gioia Diliberto
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scribner
Published: 2007-09-11T00:00:00+00:00

Twelve

At three A.M. a horse-drawn cart clattered to a halt outside my window and began pumping out the cesspools into which the toilets on our stair landings emptied. The stench was horrid, and the pumping caused a loud racket, which almost extinguished the singing and quarreling of the drunken workmen stumbling home. The next day I was miserably tired, so when the seamstresses broke for lunch, I took the staircase to the salon, where one of the vendeuses directed me to an empty room.

“If I fall asleep, wake me in a half hour,” I told her before closing the door and kicking off my shoes. As soon as I lay down on the settee, I heard moaning from the fitting room next door, then a man’s voice: “That’s it, my girl, that’s it!” Fabric rustled and furniture knocked against the wall. I covered my ears to no avail.

Finally, there was silence, then the sound of whispers and shuffling. I peeked out the door. Amanda Nichols stepped from the neighboring fitting room, her blond curls in a frenzy, her face flushed pink. The Duc de Jacquet followed her, pulling white kid gloves over his gnarled hands. They kissed quickly, as the duke slipped on his coat. Then he scurried away, and Amanda darted back to the fitting room. My nap ruined, I headed to the workroom. On my way, I ran into the vendeuse Monique Thabard. “I just saw the Duc de Jacquet with Amanda Nichols,” I said. “I thought Susanna Lawson was his mistress.”

“They both are!” cried Monique. “Nichols meets him in the fitting rooms every Tuesday morning. On Thursdays, he meets Susanna. He’s a big art collector, you know. Nichols has been after him for years to become one of her clients. Susanna’s just after his money. I can’t stand it when he’s here. I’m always worried his wife will show up.”

“Why don’t you tell him he’s not allowed beyond the salon?”

Monique looked at me as though I’d suggested she murder him. “He’s a duke!”

Two weeks later, I saw Amanda Nichols sitting on a gilt chair in the salon—a table holding an unfurled fan of ostrich plumes was all that separated her from the Duchess de Jacquet.

It was one in the afternoon, and the house was mobbed with darlings having clothes fitted for the races and the upcoming seasons in Deauville and Biarritz. I had been summoned for the duchess’s fitting, and now, as I padded across the beige carpet, the unhappy receptionist kept her head down and shuffled papers on her desk. One of her duties was to keep wives and mistresses apart.

Mademoiselle had designed this dress for the peace celebrations, and it was one of our most popular models—a satin gown with a low-cut corsage and a skirt consisting of a series of tiny tulle ruffles held out at the hem with a hoop.

It was a youthful, playful dress, extremely flattering to the young society stars who’d already ordered it. But the duchess was old and jowly with three chins and tiny blue eyes shot with red threads.

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