The Designer(103)

She had made it clear that she expected to do and see as much as possible in the ten days that were all she could spare from running Harper’s.

On the eve of Mrs Snow’s arrival, Copper received a telephone call from Sister Gibson at the Marie-Thérèse Sanatorium. It was about Amory.

‘I thought you would want to know that Mr Heathcote made a good recovery. I think your visit was really the turning point.’

‘I’m glad to hear it. Is he still in Paris?’

‘He sailed back to New York on the SS America. He will be joining the family banking firm on his arrival.’

‘That sounds like a good decision.’

‘He said he was following your advice.’

‘Yes, I suppose I did advise him to do that.’

‘There was one thing I wanted to bring up. The injury he sustained. The surgeons fitted a steel plate over the hole in the skull, but of course the hair does not grow there any longer. There will always be a visible scar. And despite your suggestion,’ Sister Gibson added dryly, ‘he will not be able to wear a hat indoors.’

So Amory had relayed that little comment, too. ‘What are you getting at, Sister?’

‘We all agreed that it would be wise for Mr Heathcote to gloss over the cause of the injury.’

‘Gloss over?’

‘There are so many young men returning from Europe with wounds sustained in the war. In the light of his future dealings with clients of the firm, and to ease the progress of his career, we believe it’s best if Mr Heathcote lets out that the wound was caused by shrapnel, rather than self-inflicted.’

‘A war wound?’

‘Exactly. As Mr Heathcote’s ex-wife, we wanted to be sure that you would—’

‘Back up the lie?’ Copper asked, as Sister Gibson hesitated.

‘Support him in his new career.’

‘He could have asked me this himself.’

‘He thought it might be better coming from a neutral party. He should not have to bear the burden of a moment’s folly for the rest of his life.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Copper said dryly. ‘I won’t spill the beans. If he wants to play the war hero, I have no intention of spoiling the illusion.’

‘Thank you. I will write to the family to confirm what you’ve told me. I’m sure they will be happy to hear it. I bid you a very good day, Mrs Velikovsky.’

‘What was that all about?’ Henry asked, as Copper replaced the receiver, laughing a little.

‘Vanity and make-believe, my darling. Amory wants it given out that he was wounded in combat.’

‘I suppose,’ Henry said, rocking their baby in his arms, ‘that in the larger sense of life’s struggle, most of us are wounded in combat.’

‘I hope he never is,’ she said, putting her arms around them both and looking down at Pierre-Henri’s sleepy face. ‘I hope he’ll be as lucky as I’ve been. There’s been so much destruction and unhappiness around me – and my life has been a fairy tale.’



Carmel Snow was nothing like Copper’s expectations. She turned out to be a small, spry sixty-year-old with a blue rinse and pearls. She had a narrow, lined, Irish face with an upturned nose, and there remained a trace of Dalkey brogue in her voice, despite having left Ireland long ago as a small child.

However, as Copper swiftly discovered, this was no sweet little old lady.

Carmel Snow was determined not to miss a second. She seemed not to need sleep at all, and was as lively at four a.m. as she was at noon. Nor did she appear to suffer from hunger or tiredness. Keeping up with her was a constant scramble. The only thing she demanded – and never missed – was lunch. And as Copper learned to her cost, lunch for Mrs Snow meant several large martinis.

‘You know what I’m like with alcohol,’ Copper sighed to Henry, rubbing her aching temples. ‘One martini, and I’m fried to the eyeballs. At three, I’m comatose. You should have warned me.’

‘Pour them into a potted plant when she’s not looking,’ Henry advised. ‘That’s what I do. I’ve known Carmel for twenty years and I’ve never been able to keep up with the three-martini lunch.’

Carmel had all the energy of a woman who had turned Harper’s Bazaar from a dowdy periodical for the middle-aged into the most stimulating women’s magazine of the era in just ten years. And she was determined to sign Copper up as a staff correspondent.

‘Your story about the prostitutes was magnificent,’ she told Copper.

‘You read it?’

‘It’s funny yet it’s hard-hitting. You’re asking some fascinating questions. Whether the profession of offering sexual services is so distant from the profession of being fashionable; the profession of being a woman in a world which doesn’t give us a fair break. That’s ground-breaking journalism.’

‘I’m glad you liked it.’

‘It has one glaring fault.’

‘What’s that?’

‘It was written for Vogue. I don’t want you writing for Vogue any longer,’ she declared briskly. She herself had started out working at Vogue, but had quit the magazine, leaving bad blood behind, which had never been forgotten on either side. ‘I need a well-placed Paris staffer. I’ll pay well.’