Dangerous Deceiver. Lindsay Armstrong
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will be my in-house model,’ she was saying. ‘I sacked the last one, silly cow. I mean to say——’ as Martha blinked ‘—she actually began to remind me of a stately bovine. She had these large unblinking eyes and she never moved with any...flair. Naturally, when I show my collection,’ she went on without pause ‘I employ other models, but you will be assured of a place. I have a showing coming up in about a month—dear, oh, dear!’
Martha frowned. ‘What?’
‘I could have designed it all around you. Never to mind, the next one——’
‘Madame, this is all very flattering but——’
‘You wish to discuss terms and so on?’ Madame eyed her shrewdly. ‘What kind of a contract I intend to put you under? One year minimum,’ she said succinctly.
Martha blinked. ‘Well, I’m not sure,’ she said slowly. ‘This is supposed to be a holiday, really, and I want to travel——’
‘Travel! You will! I take showings abroad. I also intend to make you famous—what’s one year when you’re——’ Madame gestured in a very French way ‘—twenty-two? My dear Miss Martha, when you’re thirty and starting to get leetle lines and your ’air don’t ’ave quite same bounce and gravity starts to attract the bust—that’s the time to travel!’
Martha had to laugh.
‘And this is quite an organisation I’ve built up,’ Madame added proudly. ‘You theenk this is some teen-pot outfit?’ Her black eyes flashed and her accent came back.
‘No, no,’ Martha said hastily.
‘Thees is good,’ Madame said proudly, and switched accents adroitly once more. ‘I’m just about to bring out an exclusive off-the-rack range which will be seen in all the best fashion magazines. Seen,’ she said dramatically, ‘with you inside them. But only if you put yourself in my hands, Martha Winters,’ she added sternly. ‘You think I’m flattering you? I’m only flattering the raw material.’ Martha flinched but Madame flowed on unaware. ‘Certainly some fine raw material but still a very great lot to learn. You have somewhere to live? No? You will come and live with me——’
‘No, Madame, thank you very much but I must insist that I find my own place.’
Deep pansy blue eyes stared resolutely into snapping black ones and for a moment Martha expected a Gallic explosion but Yvette Minter laughed suddenly. ‘I like it, I like it, but you see, you silly girl, I have a perfectly private little basement flat under my house that I will rent out to you for a perfectly normal amount, where you will be able to take your boyfriends without me even seeing them. Mind you, while a certain amount of sex is marvellous for the looks, men do complicate one’s life, much as I love ’em.’ And an oddly penetrating black glance now came Martha’s way.
‘Point taken,’ she said calmly.
Whereupon Madame raised her eyebrows. ‘What does that mean? Don’t you like men?’
‘It means I’m not looking for any complications at the moment,’ Martha said.
‘Ah. Hmm. I see. Yes, indeed. So.’
It was Martha’s turn to raise an eyebrow.
‘I see only that some man ’as ’urt you,’ Madame explained, causing a faint tinge of pink to rise to Martha’s cheek and causing her to curse herself silently. ‘But never to mind,’ Madame continued, ‘it is you who will be going round breaking hearts soon. In the meantime, are you on, Martha Winters?’
‘I...oh, well, they say faint heart never won anything. Yes, I’m on,’ Martha heard herself say.
Two weeks later she still felt like pinching herself.
Her basement flat below Madame’s elegant Chelsea terrace house, with its window-boxes and tubs of pansies, black enamelled front door with a polished brass knocker facing a quiet leafy garden in the centre of the square, was small but comfortable. And although at first she’d felt a bit like a rabbit living below street level, she’d soon adapted. Who would not, she thought sometimes, to vibrant, stylish, historic Chelsea? And she was gradually finding her way around the King’s Road and Fulham Road, Sloane Square, Cheyne Walk and the river.
She’d been to the Natural History Museum, the Albert Hall, Harrods, seen the Grinling Gibbons carvings in the chapel of the Royal Hospital, guided by a delightful ninety-year-old, scarlet-coated Chelsea pensioner, and, rain or shine, she walked up to Hyde Park or Kensington Gardens every morning. For there hadn’t been much rain—everyone agreed it was a marvellous spring so far. Of course, she realised there was a whole lot more of London to see, but the truth of the matter was that Yvette Minter might make amazing gestures but she was also something of a slave-driver—Martha had never worked so hard in her life. But she found herself enjoying it, even if she changed clothes fifty times a day or was cajoled, coaxed and screamed at by temperamental photographers, by everyone at Minter’s, in fact, all unable to avoid being affected by Madame’s histrionics at the forthcoming début of her off-the-rack range.
Then one afternoon, about two weeks after her arrival, Martha donned a blue fitted waistcoat that left her shoulders and arms bare and matched her eyes, a coffee-cream straight silk skirt that fell to just above her ankles and had a slit up the front to above her knees, gold suede shoes, clustered pearl earrings and a chunky gold and pearl bracelet, swept a brush through her hair, which she was leaving long and loose, and walked through to the elegant room where Madame’s haute couture clothes were shown to clients.
There was no one there apart from Madame herself, who proceeded to walk around Martha, dressed in her inevitable black, but this time definitely a cocktail dress, with her mouth pursed. ‘Yes,’ she said finally, ‘we did right with the ’air; those subtle lighter streaks are very good and a little shorter and all one length so you can toss it around and it settles just a little wild as if some man has been running his ‘ands through it but still looking très bon—it’s very good. And the ’ips under the silk—quite delectable!’
Martha said, ‘Thanks,’ casually but eyed her warily for she’d learnt that it wasn’t only when Madame was with clients or in the grip of emotion that her French accent surfaced; it was also when she was being devious, and she was capable of being extremely devious at times. ‘So?’ She looked rather pointedly at the empty gilt chairs.
Madame put her hands on her own hips. ‘So?’ she repeated arrogantly. ‘I’m having a little cocktail party at home this evening, just friends, and you are coming, Miss Martha, that’s what!’
Martha sighed. ‘Madame—look, you’ve been wonderful about renting me out your basement; you haven’t bothered me in the slightest and I hope I haven’t bothered you at all—but I think we should keep it that way.’
A flood of genuine French greeted these words which Martha endured stoically, enraging Madame even more until she burst into English, saying finally, ‘It’s business, you stubborn, ungrateful child!’
‘I thought you said it was friends.’
‘Friends, yes, but friends who will talk about you—don’t you understand anything? Is Australia such a hick place they don’t even——?’
‘Now look here...’ Martha broke in.
‘No, you look here; it’s part of my campaign to make you famous and what do you do? Throw eet een my face!’
Martha grimaced. ‘It so happens I hate cocktail parties.’
‘This one you won’t. That I guarantee. I have never given a party in my life that anyone has hated! Martha Winters—please,’ Madame said, changing tack so suddenly that Martha blinked. ‘I would like you to come with the very best intentions in my ’eart. I would like everyone to see this fabulous girl who is so soon going to become a sophisticated, wonderful woman——’
‘Stop. I’ll come,’ Martha