The Designer(79)

‘I’m not marrying Henry for his money, Ernest.’

‘Oh, sure. You just want a fatherly presence around the place.’

She had to point a knife at him to get him to stop teasing her. ‘I saw Amory a few weeks ago,’ she told him. ‘He was on his way back to Germany. I haven’t heard from him since.’

He frowned at her. ‘Then you don’t know?’

‘Know what?’

‘About his breakdown. He’s been shipped back to an army hospital in Belgium.’

Copper was shocked. ‘He was very edgy when I saw him. But I didn’t expect that.’

‘Well, they called it nervous exhaustion. He was writing a major article. It was going to win him that Pulitzer, you know? He worked day and night to try and capture the full horror. But he couldn’t take it in the end. He was on some pills the army medics gave him. He eventually swallowed the whole bottle. They found him just in time. Pumped his stomach out. Shipped him to Brussels packed in cotton wool.’

‘Poor Amory. I feel terrible.’

Hemingway held up his hands. ‘Now, look. Don’t go thinking this has anything to do with you. It doesn’t. Okay? Amory is a guy who always liked to pretend that things didn’t get to him. Well, this did. It’s not something you can forget, no matter how much war you’ve seen. They say Patton himself threw up at Ohrdruf.’

‘Amory told me he was addicted to horror.’

‘That can happen. Terrible events trigger something in certain people. They get a feeling of exhilaration, even euphoria. Like any form of intoxication, it wears off, and then there’s a slump – depression, despair. They need to climb back up again. So they go back to what triggered them in the first place. It turns into a vicious cycle of highs and lows, until it sucks you in completely. It absorbs you and everything in your life. The high becomes the only thing that matters. It’s a dangerous sickness that ultimately ends by devouring you completely.’

‘You sound as though you know what you’re talking about.’

‘Maybe I do,’ he said with a grim smile. ‘Maybe it’s why I’m a writer. The cruelty in those camps was bestial, Copper. Unbelievable.’

‘This war has brought out the worst in people,’ Copper said.

‘It doesn’t take much to bring out the worst in people. You don’t need a war,’ Hemingway said, picking up his knife and fork again. ‘You’ve got a good brain, kid.’

‘For a woman, you mean?’ she asked sweetly.

He grinned through his beard. ‘For a “women’s journalist” who devotes herself to the world of dresses and hats.’

‘Well, I cover more than hats. But frankly, I’m glad to be writing about progress, rather than war.’

She was sickened by the news about Amory. But talking to Hemingway was always stimulating, even if his comments about her marriage to Henry had stung a little.

What really made her wince was his parting remark in the street:

‘Your roaming days are over, little gypsy.’



The pace of the preparations accelerated until the eve of the wedding was upon Copper. Oddly, she found herself in the same state as she’d been the night she’d parted from Amory: hot and cold shivers running through her body, sleep evading her. She felt quite ill. As on that occasion, she knew she was facing a momentous turning point in her life, and wondered whether she was taking the right path. She had been so independent up to now. Being lonely and vulnerable was part of that independence, though she’d found it hard at times.

Life with Henry was going to be far more comfortable, perhaps, but far less emancipated – whatever promises he made about not cramping her style. Men always imagined they were undemanding and easy-going; but it soon turned out that the going was only easy if it went their way.

She’d done so much. She’d grown and developed as a person. Would that process continue as Henry’s wife? Or would she end up, somewhere down the line, wishing she’d stayed single? Perhaps regretting her decision to give up the independence she’d worked so hard to achieve?

She’d expected to feel a lot happier on the eve of her second wedding. Perhaps she would wake tomorrow full of joy?



In the event, she slept little. Dior arrived the next morning at nine to help her dress and then take her to the cathedral. He was wearing his white work coat for the important business of dressing her, his English suit in a carefully zipped bag. For some reason, that sent Copper into fits of nervous giggles.

He fussed over her with deadly seriousness. There were never any jokes or gossip when he was working. The slightest wriggle or sigh would provoke a stern rebuke. Even Pearl was not permitted to assist, but had to sit silently in a corner.

‘You look a dream,’ he sighed at last, stepping back to admire his handiwork. ‘I always said you had the perfect figure.’

‘You always said my bust was too small.’

‘Tastes change,’ he replied with equanimity. ‘You have big shadows under your eyes, my dear. But the effect is not displeasing.’

‘I’ll do something about that.’ She did her make-up and inspected herself in the mirror. Dior was right – she did look a dream. The dusty-blue silk set off her hair and complexion extremely well, and of course the design itself was irreproachable. He fitted the little hat on her head carefully and adjusted the scrap of lace veil over her eyes. The bouquet he’d picked out was, predictably, huge and baroque. She clutched it like a shield. ‘It’s going to be hard to give you away,’ he said, his hazel eyes moist. ‘But it’s time to go, my dear.’